About
How a chance email started 30 years of fun and adventure.
Victor is an east coast boy, Tim is a west coast boy. We both have a mutual friend who thought we should get together. We did. And 30 years later, we’re still going strong.
We’re left-wing Liberal, opinionated, food-loving, fun-loving guys who love to travel and also love a relatively quiet time at home. We’re also officially married and officially retired.
We started out on the west coast in 1994 and moved east in 2001. We added Cybil Shepherd to the family in 2003, and Nonna – Victor’s mom – in 2013.
Cybil left us in January 2015 and Blanche joined us in February. Nonna went into long-care nursing in December 2019 and passed from the Corona Virus in April. 2020.
In September 2020, we moved to Beaverton, Oregon and our puppy girl Blanche left us in December 2021.
We’re lovin’ being back west – new family members arriving and we get to give ’em back when diapers need changing.
Life is treating us well…
If You're Not Outraged, You're Not Paying Attention!
We’re unapologetic left-leaning liberals, and to paraphrase Pierre Trudeau’s words in Canada:
“There is no such thing as a model or ideal American. What could be more absurd than the concept of an ‘All-American’ boy or girl? A society which emphasizes uniformity is one which creates intolerance and hate. A society which eulogizes the average citizen is one which breeds mediocrity.”
The powers that be try to make our lives so complicated and difficult that we don’t have the time or energy to pay attention to what they’re doing to us.
We want equality and equal opportunity. It’s pretty simple. Let them know you’re paying attention.
Black Lives Matter!
All lives cannot matter until Black lives matter. Don’t fall for the bullshit.
Every single one of us has to work at this. We need to understand our white privilege, understand our history — our real history of racism and how this country was built upon the backs of slaves.
There is no more sugarcoating this or pretending it didn’t happen.
Get Educated. https://Blacklivesmatter.com/
Fuck The GOP
The Republican Party has been obstructionist for years. They do not govern, they do not promote the general welfare, they obstruct – and now, they are quislings who have turned over the Legislative branch of our government to the Putin Branch of the Executive Office.
If you vote for a Republican – any Republican – you are voting for traitors. You are voting against your own self-interests, against infrastructure, against science, against women, against any person who does not identify as a billionaire.
You’re voting against yourself.
The shame and humiliation they have brought to the USofA on the world stage is appalling. They have made a mockery of democracy, spewed conspiracy in place of policy, and wrapped themselves in a flag they neither respect nor understand — all while salivating over authoritarianism like it’s a cure for the very Constitution they swore to uphold.
They cheer indictments like they’re political wins, not evidence of deep, festering rot within their own ranks. They mock the suffering of everyday Americans while doing nothing — nothing — to alleviate it. And they coddle a cult leader who praises dictators, insults veterans, and undermines our elections with the gleeful complicity of enemies abroad.
This is not a party. It’s a political death cult propped up by billionaires, grievance, white nationalism, and fear.
There is no excuse anymore. None.
To support them is to spit in the face of decency, to light fire to progress, and to sell your children’s future for a cheap, angry high.
Wake up. Before there’s nothing left to salvage.
VOTE!
The absolute most important thing you can do is vote.
Voter apathy is not neutral. It’s not harmless. It’s what dragged us into this cesspool of corruption, cruelty, and chaos. Sitting out elections is not a protest — it’s a surrender. And the cost of that surrender is being paid by the most vulnerable among us every single day.
If voting weren’t powerful — if your voice didn’t matter — the fascist fuckwad Republicans wouldn’t be bending over backwards to suppress it. They wouldn’t be purging voter rolls, closing polling places, gerrymandering districts beyond recognition, or flooding the system with disinformation.
They know how much it matters. That’s why they’re terrified of you using it.
Seriously. Get educated. Get angry. Get off your ass. And vote.
Your rights, your freedoms, your future — all of it is on the line. This is not theoretical. This is not some abstract civics lesson. This is real. Right now.
All of our lives depend on it.
GayLandia
It’s staggering that more than 50 years after we came out to our families and friends, young people today are still battling the same crushing feelings of guilt, shame, and isolation that we knew all too well back then.
And people still call it a “choice.”
Who in their right mind would choose to face a lifetime of hatred, rejection, and slurs like “sinner,” “abomination,” or “sick,” simply for loving someone of the same sex — or for living openly as their true gender?
Coming out isn’t a moment. It’s a lifetime.
For many of us, one of the hardest, most life-altering decisions we ever make is to come out — to say, “This is who I am,” knowing full well the risks. And no two journeys are the same. Some of us find acceptance, others find cruelty. Far too many are cast out of their homes, disowned by parents, or erased by people they once trusted.
We count ourselves incredibly lucky. We come from large, loving families who embraced us not in spite of who we are, but because of it. Our families love and accept our partners as their own — and we never take that for granted.
Because we know how rare that can be.
It shouldn’t be.
Every LGBTQ+ person deserves a world where being honest about who you are doesn’t mean losing everything. Where love is never a liability. Where no one has to choose between authenticity and survival.
Let’s build that world — with compassion, courage, and yes, our voices and our votes.
Our 15 Minutes of Fame
When John came to the house to interview us for the column, he was playing with our dog, Cybil. He was telling stories of his fairly new dog, Marley, and what a total handful he was. We got to learn about Marley before he ever wrote the book.
This column also made it into the book of his collected columns. Not bad for a couple of homos living on The Main Line.
Ordinary People Vowing to Marry
By John Grogan
Inquirer Columnist
In many ways, they are a typical suburban couple.
They spend their weekends remodeling their tidy three-bedroom house, which sits on a quiet street in the Main Line community of Strafford. They enjoy gardening and cooking and spoiling their dog, Cybil.
They both come from large, traditional Catholic families, and they dote on their 17 nieces and nephews.
Now in their early 50s, they prefer quiet nights at home to going out on the town. They pay their taxes on time, look in on sick neighbors, and vote each election.
They are ordinary in all ways but one: Tim Dineen and Victor Martorano, a couple for nine years, are homosexuals. And that puts them squarely in the middle of the national debate on same-sex marriage.
They are not the ones protesting on courthouse steps or trying to force change by seeking marriage licenses where they know none will be issued. As the debate rages, they have written letters to newspapers, but otherwise go quietly about their suburban lives. It was for this reason – their very ordinariness – that I sought them out last week. I wanted to see for myself just how different from the heterosexual majority a gay couple in a long-term relationship is.
Marriage of the minds
They give me a tour of their house and show off improvements they have made – new tile, enlarged kitchen, hardwood floors. On the table is a vase of pussy willows brought in from the garden. Outside, a pile of rain gutters sits in the yard, next weekend’s project.
In their own minds, Dineen, a demonstration chef at a Trader Joe’s market in nearby Wayne, and Martorano, who works in the travel industry, already are married. On their first Christmas together, they privately exchanged gold bands that have remained on their left ring fingers ever since. Still, says Dineen, “we will get married the day we legally can do it.”
Some of the motivation is practical. If one is incapacitated, the other right now would need a written power of attorney to make medical decisions – a precaution they already have taken. And as Dineen pointed out over a cup of coffee, “If Victor died tomorrow, I would have to pay inheritance tax on his half of our house.”
Adds Martorano: “The law does not recognize me as his next of kin, and that is wrong. It’s just wrong.”
But more important to the couple is what marriage stands for – a public acknowledgment of a couple’s love and lifelong commitment. “Marriage is a stabilizing force in society,” Dineen says, “and we want to be part of that stabilization.”
After all, they consider themselves solid members of the community. And so do their neighbors. As Peg Schwartz, 73 and a registered Republican, told me later: “I can’t say enough about them. They really could not be better neighbors. They are delightful. They’re just nice, kind, caring people, and that’s what you want in a neighbor.” Having them next door has softened her position on gay marriage, she said. “If that makes them happy, then that’s all that counts.”
Battling stereotypes
And yet, for now at least, Dineen and Martorano will remain the one couple on their street for whom the civil contract of marriage is not an option. Until that day comes, the two men believe stereotypes and prejudice will continue.
“Gay people have a reputation for being extremely promiscuous,” says Dineen, whose full beard and wire-framed glasses give him a professorial air. “Well, not all gay people are.”
Some of them lead their lives not much differently from the straight people on their streets, sharing the same worries and joys and dreams. And that brings Dineen to his main point.
“If we were married tomorrow, the only thing that would be different would be the piece of paper that grants us our rights and responsibilities. Nothing else would change. We would still be here just as we are today, putting new gutters on the house, going to work, grocery shopping, taking the dog to the vet.”
He adds: “I think that’s what so many people fail to realize. We’re here already. We’re a couple already. For all intents and purposes, we are married. We just lack the legalities.”