Does That Hurt Or Is It Ethnic? – Don’t Get Me Started!      

 

For those of us who grew up on the movie musical, Fame you’ll no doubt recognize the above quote from this movie when a very white dancer posed the question to a black dancer that had a small piercing in the side of her nose. It’s always been one of my favorite quotes. So I’m in a bookstore yesterday (trying to find out why they didn’t have the new Advocate magazine out because my site was named as one of the top 10 blogs by their readers and I wanted to get a copy for everyone I knew) so I had to speak to someone who was working there at Borders. Now let me say that the only way I knew he was working at the store was due to his lanyard around his neck. His faded concert t-shirt and dirty looking jeans just would never have tipped me off that he was a salesperson there (another blog for another day). So here he comes, all 300 pounds of him with the dyed black hair making his pale skin looking even whiter and there it was…a big ol’ ring in his nose. I’m not talking a small ring that goes through the side of one nostril I’m talking like the kind you’ve seen in every cartoon bull’s nose. So as I’m asking my question and looking at him, I’m wondering…does that hurt or is it ethnic? – Don’t Get Me Started!

 

Here’s what I’m wondering, what exactly are we supposed to look at when someone comes at you with a big ring in their nose? I figure that they must want us to stare at it so really it would be impolite to not stare at it, right? Well, stare I did but see the thing is I have no idea what he said to me. I kept thinking, “How do you blow your nose with that in?” and “Why would someone do that to themselves?” and “What’s the advantage of having a big ring in your nose?”

 

I’m going to go out on a limb here and tell you that I think they are stupid. I don’t see any value in having a ring in your nose and even less value in trying to work somewhere that you have to give verbal communication face to face because there’s no way anyone is going to get anything you say for staring at the ring in your nose. And is it wrong of me to find it disturbing that here this kid is as white as white can be with no affiliation with any sort of ethnic background whatsoever that would lead him to feel like a member of his tribe by having this piercing? I won’t even get started on the morons who have the big ear plugs in as if they are a member of an African tribe because those white kids are going to live the rest of their life watching their hair fall out, their stomachs getting fatter and their earlobes will be at their knees creating that Bug Bunny as a woman with long hair look.

 

Lest you think I’m against all piercing, I want you to know that I have my left ear pierced. Boy that was a fun time at a mall in Burbank, California in the early 80’s. Nothing like sitting in the middle of a mall with a sixteen year old that has a piercing gun and little to no clue. Gag me with a spoon! I don’t even think about having it in now although sometimes I do wonder if I’ve gotten too old to be wearing an earring. And then I remember that pirates wore them to their grave and I suddenly feel better about the whole thing for some odd reason. Thing is, it’s far from a nose ring and I don’t think anyone will ever stop me and ask, “Does that hurt or is it ethnic?” – Don’t Get Me Started!

Yeah, I Protest. Now Could You Pass The Cheetos? – Don’t Get Me Started!

 

Although I was born in the 60’s I was way too young to understand or be involved with the civil rights movement or protesting the war or other things but from all the footage I’ve seen, these were some pretty passionate people. They were out sweating in the heat, freezing in the cold, all to raise their voices for the injustices they felt they could not live with in our society. You know, it was back when the phrase, “This is what makes America great” actually meant what it said and wasn’t a marketing program to hoodwink the public into supporting someone for the short term that would ruin us in the long run (more buzzwords). <<He steps down from soapbox>> I’m a pretty passionate guy (as you’ve all read) so it astonished me when months ago I saw some “protestors” in front of a well know chain discount store with their big banner looking like it was made at a printer that said, “Labor Protest. Management Unfair” and everyone was sitting on lawn chairs in front of the sign chatting like a family barbeque. Today I saw a “Labor Unfair” protest in front of a hospital, same scenario but only two people, one on either side of the banner and it certainly seemed as though if you listened in you’d hear one of them say, “Yeah, I Protest. Now could you pass the Cheetos? – Don’t Get Me Started!

 

I don’t know if any of you have actually seen any of these “sit ins” but they certainly don’t seem as exciting, passionate or believable without a little energy behind them. I mean, at this one today, one was reading the paper and this older woman on the other side of the banner was actually knitting. Knitting? Can’t you see Gloria Steinem fighting for the ERA while sitting on a lawn chair reading Cosmo? Or Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivering his famous, “I Have A Dream” speech seated in a folding chair with a cooler close by? I didn’t think so.

 

Come on people, I’ve directed theater and I can tell you, if you want to evoke emotion, especially with your audience moving by in cars, you’ve got about a second to make your mark and knitting ain’t gonna cut it. I mean, even the people standing on the corner in clown suits with a large arrow to a sale or condo development have more energy.

 

Call me old fashioned but I liked the homemade signs, the anger, the screaming, the holding back of opposite sides so they wouldn’t kick each other’s asses. This whole, professionally made and copied sign along with the deck chairs just doesn’t work for me. Are you really protesting or do you just not have anything better to do with your time? And if I asked you for some facts about what you were protesting would you even know why you were sitting out there? It just looks a little like when they round up homeless drunks and cart them off to vote. Are you sitting there because labor is unfair or because someone is bringing the Boone’s Farm when you get off shift? Go ahead, get mad at me for making generalizations or talking about homeless people. What’s the worst that can happen? I know, you’ll have a sign made at Kinko’s and sit on a lawn chair in front of my house saying to one another, “Yeah, I protest. Now could you pass the Cheetos? – Don’t Get Me Started!

 

Is there anything gayer than dancing cowboys? – Don’t Get Me Started!

 

Living in Vegas, we recently had the Gay Rodeo in town. Now let me say that my father is a “real” cowboy who grew up breaking horses, rounding up cattle with his uncles and living on a farm. So it always makes me a little uneasy to see the gay cowboys who seem to be wearing a costume more than living a lifestyle. Disclaimer: Now before you start kicking up your boots, boys be aware that there’s probably going to be a lot here that offends you so stop reading this blog and go directly to something safer for you like the blog on how many times I’ve been mistaken for a woman, even when I’m standing right in front of people. So a local Vegas gay magazine they talked about the DC Cowboys dance company performing as one of the highlight events for the rodeo. I have never seen this company perform and I know nothing about them but having been to their website and seen the home page photo of two buckaroos, one with his legs wrapped around the other one who is holding him up, I just have to ask, is there anything gayer than dancing cowboys?

 

I get it, I get it, we’re not supposed to make fun of each other, we’re supposed to save that for the dumb thing Bush said this week or that week but I have to say it makes me giggle a bit to see these guys from D.C. in their boots, jeans and smiles painted on like the painted desert, except theirs are by Cover Girl. Maybe if they actually came from the west I could take it a little more, okay no I couldn’t. I guess I’m just old fashioned. In my day, if you wanted to be a dancing cowboy you got into a production of Oklahoma or Seven Brides For Seven Brothers! I know, they do great things like performing at AIDS benefits and I’m sure they’re wonderful. I mean, you just look at their site and you see these volunteer gays, I mean cowboys, really are probably very talented. I have to laugh because years ago I was in a production of some western musical and the director (one of the six non-gay people in musical theater) talked about how if you were really a cowboy you’d never wear it on the back of you head tipped up, you’d wear it low, straight on your head. Well, when you go to the bios of these DC Dancing Cowboys, most of them has that hat all the way back on their head so far that you’d think there was an “s” in the word “Howdy!” And don’t be shocked when you see a girl in the line up of bios, she’s the stage manager, or cowboy wrangler I guess. God love this girl, her mother never warned her that getting into theater was going to make her a gay magnet – always a girl friend never a girlfriend!

 

Is it awful for me to rip on people I don’t even know or know anything about? Of course it is but I can’t help myself, it’s just so juicy funny to me. I know, I know, I’m going to hell. But you get on that site and read the repertoire and you tell me if you don’t start to smile when you see numbers like, “Big Spender” and “You Can’t Stop The Beat” (from Hairspray) and “That’s Where It Hurts” – well, I have to say, I’ve laughed so hard that it DOES hurt me. So to make me feel better, please someone hire these dudes for your next cowboy themed party and pay them a lot of money because they obviously deserve it but me, I’ll still be here thinking, is there anything gayer than dancing cowboys? – Don’t Get Me Started!

Jesus Rodriguez! – Don’t Get Me Started!

 

Recently I was at a friend’s house and his phone rang. When he looked at the caller ID it said, “Jesus Rodriguez” and although neither of us knew anyone by that name, my friend for so many years neither of us care to mention said, "Oh my God this is Jesus, I'd better take it." Sure enough, it was a wrong number but now whenever I’m experiencing frustrating times, rather than saying, “Jesus Christ” and possibly offending someone I can loudly exclaim, “Jesus Rodriguez!” without offending anyone, unless of course you ARE Jesus Rodriguez and even at that point why would you be offended? I’m sure there are a lot of Jesus Rodriguez’ out there who have wanted people to scream their name! But my question here is what should we say when we answer a phone now that our cell phones and home phones have caller ID? Are we supposed to act like we don’t know who it is and use our “surprised” voice or are we supposed to use their name in our greeting? (Which totally creeps me out when anyone does it to me.) It’s enough to make you say, Jesus Rodriguez! – Don’t Get Me Started!

 

The great thing about caller ID is that you can make a decision as to whether or not to pick up the phone just by looking at it. There was a time you had to wait for your answering machine to beep and then listen to “screen” your calls. Now the phone company does it for you with the caller ID. But is it rude that now you don’t even listen to your friend ramble about the fact that their weight has gone up and they are close to eating an éclair if you don’t pick up the phone and talk them out of it? Now you’ll simply choose to, as my cell phone says, “reject” them and have to wait until you get the message symbol, listen to the message, call them back and by that time not only have the eaten the éclair but they’ve also eaten half the bakery. And isn’t there enough rejection in life? Must we “reject” our friends and loved ones? Sure, we could just pick up but who wants to listen to that, right? Jesus Rodriguez!

 

When I DO answer the phone I find myself going back and forth between the classic fake surprised voice line reading, “Oh my God, how are you?” To the “use-the-name-technique”, “Hi Susie, I don’t have time to talk right now but just wanted to make sure you’re not committing suicide. You’re not; are you? Okay, goodbye.” I guess much like having jeans for fat days and jeans for skinny days, there are times when you need to use one and other times when you need to use another. But I can’t help wishing there was some sort of standard, a one size fits most, if you will. Jesus Rodriguez!

 

I’m so good about not being on the cell phone in line at Starbucks (or anywhere) or talking on my Bluetooth headset when there are others around and don’t know that I’m not talking to them but talking to Starfleet Command because today’s my day to fill in for Lieutenant Uhura (okay not really but I always kind of feel like her a little when I have my Bluetooth headset on) but the problem still exists, much like seeing someone you’ve slept with and years later seeing them and you don’t know if you should “know” them or not when you pass them at a restaurant. I just don’t know if I’ll ever know if I’m supposed to know someone or not know someone even though I can see it’s them from their caller ID. More stress I don’t need – Jesus Rodriguez! – Don’t Get Me Started!

 

Carpe Broadway – Don’t Get Me Started!

 

So I pull up to a stop light today and I hear that undeniable beat coming from the car next to me. You know, the one that shakes your car too and makes your filings in your mouth vibrate? A car that has been “tricked out” with speakers everywhere except the driver’s seat and the driver’s seat is so far back that you can’t see the driver and think that it’s either a sniper or a driverless car? It’s of course rap music and the driver is nine times out of ten a white kid who has about as much understanding of rap as I do. But what really pissed me off is that here I am driving my Mini Cooper with the sunroof open along with the windows appropriately cracked to get the breeze and I’m singing my lungs out to the Avenue Q soundtrack and it’s all been interrupted by this “noise” from the car next to me. Suddenly I wondered if the “rapper” in the car next to me could be as offended by me blaring, “If you were gay” as much as I was offended by whatever crap they were playing? And so I’ve decided, Carpe Broadway – Don’t Get Me Started!

 

We all know that carpe diem means seize the day but what I want us motorists to do is seize the Broadway and make the roads more musical for everyone. That’s right, the next time you hear some Tupac being blared at 7,000 decibels over the legal limit, I want you to hit back with some “Oklahoma”, ok? We need to take the road back and what’s better for our kids and fellow drivers, hearing music with lyrics that include things like, “fuck your mother, hit your brother” or a song that talks about a “brand new state that’s gonna treat you great?” See, it’s educational too.

 

I know the argument from the people who listen to rap is that they like the beat. Well for those of us who can remember, this is not American Bandstand where you can “rate a record” a 95 because it’s, “got a great beat and you can dance to it.” Thing is, rap music all has the same beat and do you know what the last genre of music was that all had the same beat? Exactly – it was disco! That’s right, “whether you’re a mother or whether you’re a brother” you know this to be true. Just about every disco song had the same “beat track” running behind it and yet I loved it and still do. Could it be that I’m just getting too old and I’m picking on a generation younger than myself much like our parents did? I think not, at least disco posed important questions, you know like, “I wonder why, he’s the greatest dancer? I wonder why that I’ve ever seen.” Unlike Eminem telling us that he’s “the real slim shady.” Who the hell is Slim Shady and why should we care? And don’t even get me started when the rappers try to elevate their music to something akin to an encyclopedia that needs to come out in twelve movements like the R. Kelly “Trapped In The Closet” which is as much fun to listen to as a bowel movement. Well, maybe I am getting too old to like what is hip and hop but my point here is that whatever you listen to could you just listen to it yourself and not impose it on the rest of us?

 

I’ll never forget one time I was out late at night and there was hardly anyone on the road. I stopped at a light with all my windows open and I was belting out the Ragtime score, when I completed, “Wheels of a Dream” I suddenly hear applause and looked over to the car next to me and here was this young couple applauding away. What was I to do? I could have moved my seat so far back like the “rap” listeners until the light changed but instead, I did what any performer would do, I took a bow (even if it was just with my head) and so I say, let’s go people, instead of Wang Chunging tonight or even Wu-Tang Clanging, let’s all Carpe Broadway – Don’t Get Me Started!

Walk Or Run But Please Don’t Mock Run – Don’t Get Me Started!

 

Some of the “safety” street crossing lights have a green hand and a red one, some have an icon of someone “walking”, some beep but to the best of my knowledge, none of them have anyone “mock running” on it so please stop it. You know what I’m talking about, someone is crossing the street when they shouldn’t be so to help themselves feel better (even though they thing they’re making you feel better) they do that “mock running” – you know, where they pump their arms a little more and then do that semi-jog thing, it’s the equivalent of a horse’s canter kind of but I say, that the damage is done so walk or run but please don’t mock run – Don’t Get Me Started!

 

Here in Vegas, hitting pedestrians is the norm. Why you ask? Because everyone thinks that we’re all on vacation and drunk like the rest of you. Wrong, some of us actually live here and hitting pedestrians here became so rampant that the city actually built huge crossovers with escalators and bridges that go over the Strip so that tourists will NOT cross the street in the street or get close enough to cars because the urge may just be too much for us and we may need to plow you down. And yet some morons still think it’s “cool” to cross the Strip in the middle of the Strip. And to those I say, “You have a better chance of winning in a casino than in the game of chance your playing crossing the street.”

 

But getting back to the topic at hand. I’m sure you’ve all been in the situation in a parking lot or somewhere and someone purposely begins to cross in front of you because after all, who would purposely hit a person right? Well okay, they win but why then must they taunt us with that farkarke fake representation of “running?” It’s not that you’re really hurrying or anything you’re just trying to make us think that you care enough to show us you’re wrong so you are supposedly rushing to get out of our way. But what you forget is that we can see you! I don’t care if you pick your knees up a little higher or if you push your chest out as if you’re about to break the ribbon at some marathon, the deal here is you’re not really hurrying for our sake and we hate you for it. Okay, hate is a strong word but it applies here.

 

I mean come on people do you think you’re running? Are you sweating? Have you trained for that triathlon of eating that Quad Whopper, fries and 32 ounce Diet Coke and now you’ve decided to “run” it off with that less than a one second sprint? I’m not saying that this mock running is the cause of America’s battle of the bulge but I also know that this mock running thing ain’t gonna help it, it’s just going to get on all of our nerves. So the next time you find yourself walking in front of a car try nodding as if to say, “Yes, I’m an idiot for getting in front of you and I’m sorry” or use that famous Dustin Hoffman line from Midnight Cowboy, “I’m walking here.” But for the love of everything holy, please, I beg you, walk or run but please don’t mock run – Don’t Get Me Started!

 

I've Been "Womanized" AGAIN! – Don’t Get Me Started!

 

For those of you who have been on this journey with me for the two plus years I have been blogging, you know that I have on several occasions talked about the frustration of being mistaken for a woman. Whether it’s the telemarketer who says, “Ma’am is your husband home?” or the waitress coming to the table when I’m at lunch with my friend Betsy saying, “What will you ladies be having today?” I think the biggest display of this was my Nevada driver’s license that said I was a woman for six years and I had to bring a birth certificate to prove I was indeed a man! (You can read the blogs about this by clicking on “The DMV Is Convinced I’m A Woman” in the archive section at the bottom of this page and there’s also the end of the story for you to read if you click the link at the top left of the Don’t Get Me Started blogs titled 2006.08.01 where you can see the actual license too) But yesterday I had an absolutely hysterical most unbelievable case of mistaken identity. That's right, I've been "WOMANIZED" AGAIN! – Don’t Get Me Started!

 

As it always does, it started off innocent enough. I was in a public bathroom and was washing my hands when I noticed out of my peripheral vision that the door had opened. There he was a man in his mid-thirties wearing jeans and a flannel shirt (obviously I would be a great witness for a crime as I miss close to nothing when it has to do with what someone is wearing. I can take in the whole outfit and criticize it in less that .5 of a second – it’s a gift) Anyway, he looks up as he’s entering and sees the back of me and my reflection in the mirror and immediately says, “Oh, I’m so sorry.” With that he starts to back out of the door and then, upon verifying that there is indeed a logo of a man on the door and that it is in fact the mens room, he enters again and moves without any further eye contact or communication to a urinal. I wish that I could say that I was shocked but I just looked at the heavens and said what a choreographer I used to work with used to say when we weren’t picking up her choreography, “Is it I, Lord?” All sources would indicate that it is in fact, I.

 

Now I need to make this very clear. I had jeans on and was wearing a J. Crew white sweater with an argyle pattern on the front. I was not wearing angora like Ed Wood or Johnny Depp playing Ed Wood, I was wearing jeans and a sweater. My hair is short and I even have (though I’m loathed to admit) a freaking bald spot in the back of my head! How could this man think that I was a woman?

 

All last night I struggled with it and I think I’ve come up with an answer. I must have been Cleopatra in my former life and the aura is so strong (because she was such a strong woman and temptress) that it can’t help seeping through the body that I’m using for this time around and that’s what people are picking up on. Not me, but the Cleopatra in me! I’ve got to get Shirley MacLaine on this right away!

 

Honestly, I have great respect for women (cliché time – some of my best friends are women) but it does bring me down to be constantly mistaken for one. I want it to be known that I am not one of the gays who feel the need to be a black woman stereotype by calling everyone, “Girl” or “Sistah” and I never refer to myself or someone else as “she” unless she really is a she. The closest I ever came to this was a dear friend who calls himself, “Aunt Joan” and also insists that everyone have a female name. I had made it clear that I really thought I could live the rest of my life just fine without having a “drag” name but Aunt Joan would hear nothing of it. We were sitting at lunch one day and I happened to use a phrase I use a lot, “I’m sorry, I must have been ill informed.” Suddenly Joan’s eyes lit up and as he snapped and pointed at me he exclaimed, “That’s it! That’s your name, you are now Ellen Formed!” This is what he calls me and I admit that I do sign my emails to him, “Ellen.” But on the whole, I don’t gender fuck anyone so why must I suffer being gender fucked every single day?

 

When I lived in Delaware I chalked it up to my surroundings but I live in Vegas and there’s plenty to see here what with the “Brandys” from Iowa wearing their sequin top, tight crop glitter jeans with pumps and walking the Strip at 2pm sipping on their Corona, so I can’t blame a culture like Delaware where a red scarf from Talbots is considered daring for this recent slap.

 

I don’t know what the answer is perhaps it’s time to let myself go. To become one of those 400-pound men who don’t shave, shower, and wear a lot of flannel. But unlike Renee Zellweger, I’ll have no Hollywood trainer to help me become “manorexic” if the experiment doesn’t work. No, I’m stuck with myself and guess I will just have to “suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” as this happens throughout the rest of my life. I've been "WOMANIZED" AGAIN! - Don't Get Me Started!

 

 

The Scooter People Are Taking Over The World – Don’t Get Me Started!

 

Is it just me or is the entire world riding around on scooters these days? I don’t care how cruel I may seem on this topic but it’s as if the entire world is suddenly on The Haunted House ride at Disneyland or something. Am I happy that a world of people who were confined to wheel chairs are suddenly free to go whizzing about the world, you bet but I’m sure there’s some fraud here like everything else and some of these people need a scooter about as much as my cat. Here’s what I’m talking about, I go out today and as I’m driving, I see this man in his sixties (at least) with his Grateful Dead hair blowing in the breeze, his flannel shirt a flapping away and as he zooms down the street on his scooter with a smile on his face he’s clutching a box of Miller Lites. The scooter people are taking over the world – Don’t Get Me Started!

 

I’ve been up late at night and I’ve seen the infomercials. I’m assuming that everyone has gotten their scooter or Hoverround or whatever their particular brand of scooter is called for free with the help of those white, white, whiter than white friendly, cult-like sales people they show. Have you seen the one where they’re all scooting around like an Esther Williams chorus doing formations that would make Busby Berkley proud? It makes me sick. The only thing that gives me even remote joy is that I’m sure they didn’t get it right on the first take and at some point there was a pile up the likes of which is normally reserved for the 405 freeway in LA on a Friday night!

 

Here’s the deal, it’s not that I’m just being mean to be mean. (I’m convinced I’m going to hell first so that I can decorate in my colors and then when all my friends get there, they’ll just have to live with it.) Some of these people, dare I say it; just appear to be lazy and not really “in need” of the scooter. Have you ever been in a market and they walk in just fine and then they get on one of the grocery store owned scooters and they suddenly demand the right of way, becoming Mario Andretti as they zoom at hyper speed taking displays and small children with them? Who the hell are these people and how come they’re so good at driving these things if they only use it at the market? They also seem to have no trouble getting out of the scooter to get something on a top shelf. Think of all the insurance adjusters lurking around store aisles, trying to catch people standing up from their scooter!

 

I’m just a little afraid that sometime soon we’re going to become a bunch of people who can only move with a scooter or lay on the couch. Think of all the culture we’ll be missing, as dance companies are reduced to look like the old Bette Midler special where she plays Dolores Dellago, the toast of Chicago whose act consists of zooming around in an electric wheel chair in a mermaid costume and singing.

 

I have to ask, do we all need them or have we really just gotten so lazy that we can’t even muster up the gumption to walk. Or is it like Invasion of the Body Snatchers (I’ve seen every version of this movie) one night when the infomercial was playing a pod appeared next to a perfectly healthy, couch potato American (“pod” not “Ipod” – try to keep up people) and when they woke up they suddenly had a scooter and had lost all desire to walk. I really think the scooter people are taking over the world – Don’t Get Me Started!

 

Man oh Manorexia – Don’t Get Me Started!

 

Never the one to be impressed with new names for old diseases, I am perplexed at the sudden glitzy new “manorexia” title for what is basically anorexia man-style. There are even websites that will tell you, like the country’s terror alert system, whether or not say Carson Daily has crossed over from a yellow to an orange warning. It’s bad enough we’re all a country of overweight people but now we have to spend our time worrying about the thin too? Worrying why they’re so thin, if they’re eating and when they should get some help? This all sounds like my Jewish mother. Well, much like the fashion magazines that are blamed for everything from eating disorders to teenage promiscuity, I’m convinced that if we have to blame someone for the recent upswing in manorexia somewhere along the line someone is going to blame “the gays”. Man oh Manorexia – Don’t Get Me Started!

 

Look, long have I discussed my own battle of the bulge and my ultimate reality that I was never going to be “gay thin” but let’s face it, how many really fat gays have you seen on television? Exactly. Even on the iconic, Will and Grace, when Jack would make a joke about Will’s weight it really was less than even remotely funny because Will was thin (and if we’re honest, he would be close to the “orange” on the manorexia terror alert system). I get it that the writers we commenting on “gay thin” but for once we’re not talking about that here.

 

What I’m convinced will happen is that we will find out that once again we’re blaming television, printed material, movies and online dating for a problem that is a psychological disorder. Trust me, if you put me in a room for three days and didn’t feed me and all I could look at were Tobey Maguire (a blue on the manorexia terror alert system) movies, I may come out with low self-esteem and hungry but I doubt I’d suddenly start working out like mad and not eating.

 

Yes, society contributes to how we see ourselves and whether we’re trying to gain the love and acceptance of our parents, a partner or our pets, we sometimes cross the line and lose a little perspective on ourselves but if you want me to lose sleep over the fact that Richard Grieco is close to being orange on the scale I just can’t, I have other things to worry about. Yes, if you personally know someone who has lost so much weight that they now resemble a Wheat Thin, by all means get them help but as far as you celebrities go, let me tell you how much I’m not worried about you. And this doesn’t just go for men, I don’t care about the Olsen twins or Nicole Richie or even Paris Hilton because you know what I know that they don’t? Thin people don’t age well. That’s right, I’ve said it. As gravity takes hold and our fat slips from our cheeks into our jowls if you’ve got nothing there to slip the only bright spot you have to look forward to is that you’ll never have to buy a costume at Halloween because you’ll all ready resemble a skeleton.

 

Go ahead think about the thin through the ages and how well they aged. Think of the glamorous Jackie Onassis, do you think she was buying a Halloween costume toward the end? Now think about Jackie Gleason, not bad at the end and he would never even be considered for the manorexia terror alert system. So while I’m sure it won’t be long before the gays get blamed putting pressure on men to be thinner than a 10 year-old and I do hope that those people who need help, get it. For those of us struggling to lose that same ten pounds, all I can do is sigh and say, “Man oh manorexia” – Don’t Get Me Started!

 

 

WWPD? – Don’t Get Me Started!

 

Have you seen the bracelets that say, “WWJD?” For those of you who have been living on a kibbutz, let me help you out as to what these initials stand for, “What Would Jesus Do?” now I don’t know that any of us really know what he would do in a situation but that puts me right out of the Right and the Moral Majority apparently (as if that took even a nudge, let alone a shove). But being Jewish (I know this will shock you) I don’t spend a lot of my time wondering what the big “J” would do however during the Spinach Crisis of 2006 (cue theme music and logo), I do have to wonder, “What Would Popeye Do?” or WWPD? – Don’t Get Me Started!

 

I’m sure there has been much rejoicing by children that spinach is (however temporarily) not an option at the dinner table (however at the child obesity rate I’m sure that some children don’t even know what spinach is because it’s not an option for their Happy Meal - and the family dinner as we know it is completely kaput – but don’t get me started on that). However, for those of us who love to think we’re eating healthy when we’re having that spinach salad (complete with the eggs, bacon and hot greasy bacon dressing) just what the hell are we supposed to do?

 

Over the past few years I have grown to love the growers who clean my spinach for me. I use it in the morning in my omelet; lunch for the aforementioned salad and occasionally at dinner. That’s right I’m a spinach lover now, it's my vegetable of choice and I don’t care who knows about my addiction. Well, for the past few weeks (as you all know) there has been no spinach and I’m sorry to say that there has been no joy in Scottville either. Don’t try to get me to see the benefits of broccoli or romaine lettuce; I want my damn spinach back. I’ve put on weight because I haven’t had my spinach, damn you e coli! Damn you baggers of the spinach for letting me down like the baggage handlers at airports. Damn you all! 

 

Recently I was meeting a friend for breakfast and as I was getting lost in LA trying to find him and/or the restaurant, he told me of a meal that he was going to order for me. He said, “It’s got everything you like, it’s got lox, onions, cream cheese and spinach.” Well, I nearly drove the car onto the right road! I said, “What the fuck? Spinach? Are you trying to kill me?” I’m pleased to report that when I arrived at breakfast there wasn’t any spinach in my meal and of course my friend behaved as though he had truly saved me from the brink of death. (We’re a little over-dramatic)

 

Now (supposedly) spinach is making its comeback and I don’t know if I’m brave enough to open that bag and take my chances. Although we all know how thorough the government is when it comes to these things (he said with one eye closed and the other rolling around in his head) I don’t mind telling you I’m a little afraid. So in these troubling times I have to look to a real leader, someone I can believe it, someone who has dreamy forearms even though his knees could never come together if he was a one-man-band and had to hit his cymbals and ask myself that hardest of questions, “What Would Popeye Do?” or WWPD? – Don’t Get Me Started!

 

 

 

Why You Shouldn’t Wear A Green Satin “Oz” Jacket For Your First Day Of High School – A Vintage Don’t Get Me Started!

 

Okay, from the title you pretty much get it but please allow me to at least try to explain. My grade school years were pretty much standard, the gym teacher offered me an, “A” in seventh grade if I would “find something else to do” during PE every day for the entire year. And in eighth grade I was fortunate to have one of the coolest guys in school think I was funny so he protected me. But when it came to high school I knew I couldn’t go to the high school where my brother was (for his sake and mine), I wanted a clean fresh start and Coronado high had a thriving theater department. Even by today’s standards, doing eight productions a year, two of them being musicals, is a lot of shows to mount, especially for a public high school. So it was all set, I would get my fresh start and surely a high school that had such a prominent theater department would welcome me with open arms. Come on, I had been performing since the age of six. A great theory but you see every summer my family went to California for our family vacation and we had a friend of the family who worked in a Hollywood memorabilia store in Century City, California and in the summer of 1979 when I was in this store I bought two things, a “Surrender Dororthy” t-shirt and a coveted jacket that I was sure was the hottest thing in the fashion world. Unfortunately, I didn’t understand that these items wouldn’t be cool outside of California or what I now know more specifically as outside West Hollywood where the “boys” are – if you know what I mean and I know that you do. But allow me anyway to tell you why you shouldn’t wear a green satin “Oz” jacket for your first day of high school – Don’t Get Me Started!

 

Growing up I was fascinated by the movie, The Wizard of Oz as I think most children were when they would watch it each year when it played on TV. I loved the singing; the dancing and I loved Judy Garland. (Now is the time to try and choke down every gay stereotypical comment that is running through your mind.) Okay, I’ll admit it, I was obsessed with The Wizard of Oz and even received as an eighth grade graduation gift a limited edition lithograph signed by Ray Bolger and Jack Haley which I still have today and am sure I’ll retire on when it goes to Sothebys for auction.

 

So when I came across a green satin jacket that simply had “Oz” in big white silk-screened glory on the back, I knew I had to have it. Believe it or not, satin jackets were in style in 1979 but here’s the thing, I lived in Arizona and the school year started at the end of August when people are still frying eggs on the sidewalk. And yet apparently I thought I needed to wear it my first day of school. I was too cool for the school. That is until I took my first step onto the campus.

 

Now I admit it, I’ve never been good with being subtle but the “O” on the back may as well have been a bullseye. Immediately, the taunts started, “Hey freak, what does that mean?” or “Oz? More like fag!” and for the intellectual bullies, “Ounce? What the hell do you have the abbreviation for an ounce on your jacket, asshole?” I remember walking the halls, thinking this green beacon would lead me to the “cool” kids who would get just how cutting edge my style was but that never happened. Like a joke that loses all hope of being funny when you have to explain it, I spent more time explaining what it meant, only to be greeted with stares that said, “Oh you have fucked yourself for the rest of high school. I need to get away from you.” I knew I wasn’t in Kansas anymore and although I never wore the jacket to school again (or anywhere that I recall), it began four years of being called a fag everyday. And that’s why I felt the need to impart this cautionary tale, because apparently you can take the gay out of the jacket but you can’t wear the jacket anywhere. And that my friends is why you shouldn’t wear a green satin “Oz” jacket for your first day of high school – Don’t Get Me Started!

 

The only “Page” I want a congressman hitting on is Patti – Don’t Get Me Started!