Good King Wenceslas – Don’t Get Me Started!

For years I worked at a theatre where we did an annual holiday revue filled with as many holiday numbers as we could fit into two hours. We did the classic and the not so classic holiday songs and the perfunctory one or two songs about Hanukkah. Between being in choir in school (where we sang Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus every year for the holidays) and years of Christmas shows at the theatre where we did everything from your standard carols to the Chipmunks classic where they tweaked our voices so that we would sound just like them, suffice to say, I know a lot of Christmas music. But when I was singing about, “sidewalks busy sidewalks” I always knew what I was singing about. What cracks me up are the people who are all about Christmas but have no idea what the songs mean that they sing every year and I for one think that they should know what the hell they’re singing about and their holiday. You want an example? Look no further. Good King Wenceslas – Don’t Get Me Started!

Now my family has a history with this song, the Good King Wenceslas song was the song that caused my brother to give up the piano for good. We’re not really sure if it was the first song that he was actually going to have to really practice to get right, that didn’t just come easy for him so he was done or if he had something against the Good King himself. We still tease my brother to this day about King W getting the best of him. I should take a moment to point out here that my musical instrument career while not as abundant as my brother’s that included piano, drums and the electric vibes; my guitar teacher did leave town without any notice. It’s true, one week I was waiting and he just never showed up, being me, I could only assume that I had played so badly that the guy left town without any forwarding address just to get away from me and my horrible playing. I was always so busy trying to sing and play at the same time that I would finally get my fingers to create the chord, strum and then just sing the rest of the song, forgetting I had a guitar in my hand, changing chords or even strumming for that matter. You know, a little like Charo.

But ever since my brother didn’t play Good King Wenceslas on the piano, the song (or at least the first line) has always been in my head. “Good King Wenceslas looked out, on the feast of Stephen…” Now I have no idea what this means and one holiday season (when I was still at the theater and living with my pal, Betsy) I decided that as we did our holiday shopping I was going to do some informal survey work to find out more about this guy, King Wenceslas and also see what the ever-loving, ever-so-righteous Christians knew about it too.

And so I began, “Hey, what do you know about King Wenceslas and that whole feast of Stephen thing? Do you know what song I’m talking about? You do? Okay, well, what is that all about?” The first couple of people I spoke with knew the song but had no idea who the king was or what that whole feast of Stephen was about. I asked several more people and no one knew but my favorite response was from a woman that was a sales clerk in one of the stores. Here’s my recollection of the interaction.

Me: So, may I ask you a question?
SC (Sales Clerk – not Santa Clause you idiots): Yes, sir?

Me: Do you know the song, Good King Wenceslas?

SC: Yes, I believe so

ME: Well, what is that song really about? I mean, who is this king? Who was Stephen? The whole thing has me confused.

SC: (Very defensive) Well sir, my family celebrates the Savior’s birth and we don’t get involved with a lot of the commercialism that has become Christmas.

Me: (confused) Oh, I see, but doesn’t this song have religious connotations to it? I mean, it’s not like Jingle Bells, it seems to be telling some historical thing about Christmas, right?

SC: (agitated) Sir, I don’t need to know about this song, I know that Christ was born and that is what we’re celebrating on Christmas.

I just backed away from the counter and ran out of the store as fast as I could (weighed down with shopping bags and my bulky winter wear) laughing my ass off with Betsy. The thing is, let’s face it, none of you Christians and none of us Jews can put King Wenceslas back together again. You don’t know who he was so just say that, don’t get all defensive about the birth of Christ or anything else, just say you don’t know who the king was or Stephen and that all you know is if you don’t get the right sized slippers for your mother she’s going to kill you. That’s an answer I would accept. Don’t get all defensive about it, people.

Now before you all write in and send me the meaning of the song, the king and the feast (Oy, sounds like a Vegas dinner show) let me say that I’m fully capable of looking it up but I don’t want to. I want to ask people every year if THEY know. You know, the people with the fish on their car, the people with their WWJD bracelets and the general idiots who wear “Christmas” sweaters. I want to continue to ask every person who celebrates Christmas about it. And if you want some fun, you’ll do the same. Ask the barista at Starbucks or the person wearing the stupid Santa hat at the store in the mall. Now write to me about those reactions and the fun you have asking people and I’ll cherish it forever. I’m telling you right now it’s some juicy good fun. And when you come across someone who actually does know what it’s all about, be sure and let them know that they are one of the few and the proud. Good King Wenceslas – Don’t Get Me Started!

Don’t You People Have Homes Or Jobs Or Something? – Don’t Get Me Started!

Some days I work from home and today was one of those days. The advantage here is that I can run around and do some errands during the not so crowded times of the day. So today I went to the store down the street to get some batteries for my automatic shower cleaner. Okay, I’m busted, before I go any further you all may as well know that almost everything in my house runs on batteries or electrical current (keep your minds out of that gutter). The cats have the automatic kitty litter box and the water fountain. We keep the Sharper Image and stores like it in business. But today I went to the K-Mart at 11:00am and could not believe the scene. There were people as far as the eye could see and I had to wonder, it’s 11:00 in the morning, don’t you people have homes or jobs or something? – Don’t Get Me Started!

It was a Tuesday morning, who in the hell is doing all of their K-Mart shopping on a Tuesday morning? The only reason I went there for the batteries was that I went to the Trader Joe’s grocery store in the same parking lot. Even Trader Joe’s with all its fashionable food was not like the big K!

Who are these people? Their carts were so full they were overflowing. I couldn’t even get a good look at what anyone was buying because I was standing there in disbelief. Were they giving something away? Was this perhaps the largest “Blue Light Special” in recorded history? Were my days off? Was this really Black Friday and they had switched it to a Tuesday and no one told me? I stood there dazed watching, as the checkout lines became four, then five and then six deep. This was with almost every check stand open. There I was with my eight pack of AA batteries with the free blinky star that was included and I thought to myself, “I can’t do it. I cannot stand here in this line while these (almost all women) are putting their seven hundred items on the counter. I just don’t think I can take it.” And then I turned around and saw one woman at the jewelry counter…

I ran over to the jewelry counter figuring I was going to outsmart all the other shoppers with my savvy. I stood there and it only took seconds to realize that the woman standing with the empty cart in front of the jewelry counter knew the employee and they were just chatting. That’s right, all hands were on deck and these two are just chatting away as if they’re the only two people in the world. Woman One: “Oh yeah, I know what you mean, these holidays just wear me out.” Woman Two: “You don’t have to tell me, I stand here all day and you can just imagine.” I stared, I shifted my weight to my other hip, I sighed a little, I tried for eye contact but nothing, nothing would stop these two. That’s right, even when the lines from the checkouts got dangerously close to the jewelry counter these two bitches kept up the conversation.

You’re right, I should have cleared my throat and done a big, “EXCUSE ME?!?” but I didn’t, I looked at the people everywhere and suddenly it began to feel like a party where you don’t know anyone and you soon discover there’s no one there you would ever want to know. And so I walked back to where I had originally picked up the batteries and wedged it back into it’s cardboard display and then kept walking right out of the store.

I have no batteries, I have a dirty shower, and I have no free blinky star thing. I’m bummed. I just can’t have this be the way it’s going to be until after Christmas, okay? Can’t we all agree to just shop in normal spurts and not as if we’ve just been told the largest snowstorm in history is about to descend upon us? I remember when I lived on the east coast and they would predict a huge storm. Everyone would run to the grocery store and get enough milk to feed the orphans in Africa, all the bread and toilet paper was completely gone and then we’d always look for the one odd item that was cleaned out. The item was usually something really odd like all the cabbage being bought out. Because you know if you’re in a really bad storm, boarded up in your house for days on end the one essential is without a doubt, cabbage. (Well, it would explain all the toilet paper.)

It’s not December yet people, please, I’m begging you, don’t make me have to set my alarm to go to Wal-Mart at 3am just to get toilet paper and batteries. Remain calm; use the Internet and shop in moderation because half of the crap you’re buying no one really wants to receive anyway. It’s like when I was in the grocery store the other day and a woman was buying all these small brown lunch bag sized bags that had a cinnamon stick attached to the top of each bag. The cashier asked what these were and the woman said, “Oh they’re make it yourself carrot cakes. Everything you need to make one is in this bag. They make a great gift, that’s why I bought eight of them.” Well I know eight people who are fucked this year, getting lousy gifts!  We’re a world that is overpopulated but please let’s be courteous of others (and when I say this, I mean, me)! If you see someone standing with one damn item, offer to let them go ahead of you, don’t be talking to your friend instead of ringing people out and for God sakes, don’t you people have homes or jobs or something? – Don’t Get Me Started!

A Wreath In The Shape Of A Peace Sign Is Offensive? – Don’t Get Me Started!

Not sure if you’ve all heard about the latest bout of craziness but it’s in Colorado about a wreath in the shape of a peace sign (pictured here). That’s right, the homeowner’s association want it taken down because they say that it’s an anti-war protest and/or the sign of Satan both apparently offensive to other residents. Come on, a wreath in the shape of a peace sign is offensive? – Don’t Get Me Started!

There are a lot of things that offend me and I consider myself just a little less paranoid than say Woody Allen from Annie Hall who thinks everyone is talking about him being Jewish. He’s walking and he’s telling the story of how someone said to him, “Jew eat? He didn’t say did you, I distinctly heard him say, Jew eat?” But something that has never made me paranoid are the Christmas decorations and calling it Christmas.

Growing up in Arizona I hadn’t come across the phenomenon of people and their obsession with their wreaths. When I moved back east and it was time for the first Christmas season there, I saw a car that had a wreath attached to its grill, right on the front of the car! I thought this was hysterical. Imagine how quiet I got when I was telling the story to other people and they suddenly looked at me as if I was the crazy one for not understanding the greatness of the car wreath. Sure enough just a few short days later here they all were, much like Christmas trees, there were some that were real, some that were fake, some that were decorated and some that even lit up. I didn’t get it and to this day I don’t understand how anyone thinks that putting a wreath on his or her car is a good thing to do or even looks nice. I mean, what if you rear-end another car? Think of all the pine needles you’ll be picking out of the paint.

But even with the crazy wreath on the car phenomenon, how anyone could perceive a wreath in the shape of a peace sign as being offensive is completely beyond me. I’m sure certain people could find a bible somewhere that says, “Thou shall not create the wreath in a form other than a circle.” And what I can also guarantee is that these complaints did not come from a Jew, an atheist or someone with sense. This could have only come from one place, that’s right, I know it’s going to be hard for you to hear but it could only have come from ex-reverend Haggard’s gay male ex-prostitute, ex-meth dealer, massage therapist. I know, I know, it’s shocking but come on it is Colorado we’re talking about here and besides whom else could it be? The guy who lied about killing Jon Benet? A woman who thought that the symbol long associated with peace was much larger than some war and that it was a reassuring message to be sending everyone put up this wreath. The morons who really complained should be ashamed of themselves. I mean isn’t there something about Peace On Earth associated with this season?

Come on people, we have a lot of important stuff to worry about (like where we’re going to get our hands on an Elmo TMX), give the woman with the wreath and the rest of us a break. If you really think that this is some sort of negative symbol, you don’t need a homeowner’s association; you need an association to help you with your paranoia and delusions of Bush grandeur. I know it’s shocking to some people but the world does not revolve around the decisions made at the White House. It’s like when you were a kid and had a friend over and you made a mess, he left and you ended up cleaning it up. We may be cleaning this mess up but we all had a hand in making it too.

But please don’t confuse the White House, the war, Haggard or Mike Jones with people’s religious beliefs or their obsession with taking pine trees and making them into the shape of circles. Circles, yes, we must come out against the circle, how can you trust something that has no beginning and no end? Circles are a symbol of unity only holy for the sanctity of marriage and we all know that marriage can only be between a man and a woman, just ask Kid Rock and Pamela Anderson (and they said it would never last). I don’t know, I’ve got eighteen years with the same man without any of the rights and privileges of marriage and do you know what? Although he’s never had one on his car (while I’ve known him), I cringe to admit that he likes the idea of wreaths on cars. But a wreath in the shape of a peace sign is offensive? – Don’t Get Me Started!

I’m tired, that’s right, I’m tired of the used to be and the currently famous with their tirades that give them more press than they would ever get otherwise. This whole mess with Michael Richards is absolutely ridiculous. You’re talking about a desperate man. Desperate that he has no career and so what happens when he goes on stage and bombs again? He lashes out at anyone and everything and the end result is that he still got on Letterman, Jesse Jackson’s radio show and a million other places that wouldn’t care about what he was doing otherwise. I’m here to tell you, Michael Richards, your fifteen minutes have just been extended – Don’t Get Me Started!

Mel Gibson’s rants put him in rehab and eventually got him a prime time audience to talk about his practically defunct new movie which I have a feeling will now see the light of theaters. While I believe that Mr. Gibson’s rant was done purely from his very odd bringing up and deep seeded bizarre current belief system (I have no doubt that he is in fact an anti-Semite) I think the whole Richards tirade is coming from another place entirely.

Imagine if you will, everyone standing up and applauding you when you walked into a room for a long time and then its stops. Seinfeld was on for a long time and is still running in syndication. Michael Richards is synonymous with the role of Kramer and his one series he tried to have after Seinfeld failed quickly and silently. I’m sure he has enough residual money to live off of the rest of his life but what’s he supposed to do at his age when no one wants him anymore unless he comes sliding into a room, scratching his head and eating Jerry’s food? In the words of my mother, “Where are you going to take an act like that?” Apparently to stand up clubs but the problem there is that at least on this particular night we know he wasn’t doing so well.

Michael Richards talks about being “shattered” and I believe he is a shattered man, looking at his life and career as though it may be over and so he lashed out at everyone and everything that night. Was it wrong, absolutely but I believe we’ve just seen a comedian go “postal” or “Columbine” if you will with words instead of a gun. He’s frustrated, has a shattered career and life so he’s taking it out on the only people who will listen, the audience at clubs where he probably once packed them and now plays to a handful of people who came to see someone else and would rather chat among themselves than listen to him. What we need is an online re-education class for these people who can’t really transition to another career and at the same time can’t revive the ones that they once had on television. Oh wait, that’s what just happened isn’t it?

Think about it, I don’t think that he did it deliberately for publicity but with this one tirade he has managed to generate more interest in himself than he did since the last time we saw him on Seinfeld. What will happen next? Look for a Barbara Walters exclusive interview (Oprah probably won’t touch him), a book deal and eventually he might even turn the head of a studio exec thinking they can make a show about him now being a landlord in a predominantly black apartment building that houses the likes of other ex-tirade stars you know like say, Gary Coleman and Todd Bridges as the Ernie and Bert of the building. My point is that when we put someone on a pedestal so high based on one character or performance, they’re bound to fall. But if a celebrity falls and no one is there to take a video with their phone, does it still make a noise? You may be upset and I may be upset but somewhere late at night, the “people” behind Michael Richards (publicist, agent, etc.) are thinking, okay, good boy. Michael Richards, your fifteen minutes have just been extended – Don’t Get Me Started!

Hi, It’s Adolph – Don’t Get Me Started!

If you’re like me, the amount of “spam” email you get in just one day is staggering. I’ve been courted by the Christian singles, I’ve been told I can “shoot like a porn star” and several times a day I find that the loan I never applied for has in fact, been approved. I never really open them because like everyone else, I live in fear of a virus from my spinach, sex and my computer. However, there’s a new rash of spam that cleverly use a name that might be familiar to you in the subject line to try and get you to open them. It’s starts out with “Hi it’s…” and then the name. I get it if it’s like Mike or something but a recent one really had me thinking when it came and said, “Hi, it’s Adolph” – Don’t Get Me Started!

I don’t know if this spam mail is generated by a computer or there are Botswana children who moonlight sending these when they’re not making fake Fendi bags or what but I know I get a ton of them and none have intrigued me as much as Adolph. I suddenly started thinking, “Do I know anyone by that name?” The only person I know named Adolph was Hitler and although some of you may find this shocking, I didn’t know him in person. My mind began to race, what if this really was THE Adolph? What if part of his penance in the after life was that he had to send emails of apology to all the Jews of the world? What would he say? Maybe he would say, “Here’s how I would have killed the Jews, if I had done it.” Oh wait, no, that’s O.J. Or maybe he would write in a bunch of email abbreviations like, LMAO (Laughing My Adolph Off) or KYA (killed your ancestors). I mean what could he say? And why does my mind think this way?

The point is that I don’t understand what the whole spam email thing is about, really. And as much as I’m on a computer and consider myself bitechual, you’d think I would know but I don’t. I know it has something to do with putting cookies on your computer or something and then they can track you down or something. Now, I don’t know why they named them cookies but there’s nothing I love more than chocolate chip cookies, I don’t care if they’re even the weird tasting ones from a bakery, love the chocolate chip cookies more than cake, candy or anything. But I digress. My dear friend Betsy would say that it’s the government and they’re tracking our every move and if that’s the case, where do I apply for that job to just sit on the computer all day tracking the whereabouts of never was beens like me? “Hey Charlie look, Helen from Des Moines really did order that mallard decoy for her brother in Chicago. Gee, that’s going to go right back considering I saw her brother order from the International Male catalog the other day!” 

Here’s the deal, we all get the spam mail and we hate it. Then why oh why do “friends” think it’s perfectly swell to send jokes, chain emails and the dreaded, “A true friend – I’d better get this back!” emails? I immediately delete all of the above. You are truly NOT my friend if you send these types of emails to me, you are the enemy and you are Adolph Hitler! Well, maybe you’re not Adolph Hitler (I tend to exaggerate). All I’m saying is that we have enough junk in our life; we don’t need additional email junk. That is of course unless there’s an email one day that says, “Hi, it’s Judy Garland.” I think I might open that one just to see if Judy is trying to contact me from the Palladium in the sky. But unless you’re dating someone with the name, don’t open an email with the subject, Hi, it’s Adolph – Don’t Get Me Started!

Since the invention of the Internet, I have not gone to a mall or store on the infamous “Black Friday” and frankly I really don’t understand why others put themselves through all of it. The crowds are enough to counteract any bargain that might be out there. There seemed to be less of the crazy ads this year, you know the ones that promise 6 plasma screen televisions for $6 at Wal-Mart if you get there first. You know those items that make people line up and have their Thanksgiving dinner in the line just so they can be the first person to run to the electronics department when the store first opens? It’s enough already, considering that people are all ready killing each other over Play Station 3s (and those are certainly not on sale). But for me, the only sale I was interested came in an email from my salon; Blech Friday – Don’t Get Me Started!

That’s right, the email came telling me that all of my favorite Bumble and Bumble hair care products were going to be on a 30% off sale for one day, Friday! I know you’re shocked, I couldn’t believe it myself. There I ran, arms outstretched, tears in my eyes to load up on the products. The good news, there was no line, no craziness, just a bunch of people trying to build their self-esteem they’d lost from putting on that 6 pounds in preparation and having Thanksgiving. (You know you’re supposed to make any dessert items at least four days in advance, to make sure the recipe is right and eat all of it yourself and then make it again before the big day for everyone else, right? What? Doesn’t everyone do that? Eat an entire pie or batches and batches of cookies before making the “real” ones for the guests?)

But back to the shopping…I guess it’s another one of those things that people look forward to every year and I certainly would be the last person to try to destroy anyone’s shopping high. But honestly, you see these places on television on the news, the people ripping Elmos out of one another’s hands or the parking lot stalkers driving up and down waiting for someone to leave so that they can get in and I just don’t see any enjoyment in it at all. Plus some of these places are now opening at 3:00am just to get a jump on the competition and more sales.

And is it just me or how about the fact that there are so many places open on Thanksgiving anymore? Didn’t it used to be that if you didn’t get things the night before Thanksgiving you would have to make due with the last can of Spam from a 7-11 and shape it into a turkey? This Thanksgiving I saw everything from supermarkets to dollar stores open for business. Shouldn’t there be at least one day a year when everyone just sort of stops and is forced to deal with their family? You know, one that doesn’t have any religious connotations to it, just a day to say, “Thanks for being my family. The loan I never paid back in 1986, the time you came when I got a flat tire and didn’t want or know how to change it myself?” I realize I live in Vegas where a lot of people don’t have families here locally but even if you have to spend the day on speakerphone listening to your family’s Thanksgiving while you eat your cold cut turkey sandwich, there seems to be some better alternatives than roaming the dollar store aisles. (Including helping out at a shelter or something to help make someone else’s Thanksgiving and yours.)

Why You Should Still Be Thankful (even with your family)

When you look at things historically (or as I understand them) it was pretty amazing that the Indians were so gracious as to have dinner with the pilgrims altogether that first Thanksgiving. This just goes to show what every Jew knows, whether there’s going to be good or bad news, great or troubled times, “Eat, bubbeleh, eat.”  Breaking bread, as it were, is one of the few civilized customs we have left in America today.

I know it may be difficult to gear yourself up for family holiday interaction but just remember that there’s nothing easier then when you finally get to the table and all you really have to say is, “Would you pass the gravy, please?” I’m convinced this is why everyone eats so early on Thanksgiving, everyone is thinking, if we can just make it to the meal it will all be okay.

The arrivals happen (so far so good), then a little chit chat and catching up on one another’s lives (manageable and you discover what a good liar you are), suddenly a heated conversation starts about politics, religion or Rosie on The View and your mother (seeing her watch says one o’clock and she planned to serve at three but trying to avoid the confrontation) screams, “Dinner is served!” Food is the great equalizer and brings us together (it’s also what makes us the fattest country in recorded history) but there’s no time for thinking about that on this day of Thanksgiving, after all until you put the gravy on it, turkey is very lean.

Whatever your family is (and no matter how much therapy you’ve gone through to avoid becoming them) those people you’re cringing about are part of you and what made you who you are today. The cliché about nothing in life worth having is easy to get holds true. It also goes for you and how you choose to react and relate to other people. That difficult relationship with your family, friends, mate, date or trick may just be the thing that makes you a stronger, more loving and giving person (if only by way of you overcompensating to not become them). So when your cousin says that Jerry Falwell has it right say to yourself we got Rick Santorum out of office. When your brother says marriage is between a man and a woman, say to yourself, you can get married in Arizona. And when you look around the room on Thanksgiving realize that these are people just like you’re a person and ask yourself what Shakespeare’s Shylock asked, “If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not revenge?”

We’ve come a long way, babies. When I was eight years old I played Tiny Tim in a college production of A Christmas Carol, “God bless us, everyone.” Other than when I was at the theater I didn’t feel very blessed. I was one of the “unfortunate ones”, the effeminate toddler that was a “Momma’s Boy” then in grade school, “A Sissy” and finally in high school as I was beaten and slammed into lockers more than once a day I graduated to, “A Faggot”. The thing is, in talking to friends, I guess I was fortunate to be effeminate because I never had to doubt that my family loved me for me regardless of the names others hurled at me because this is all I could or knew how to be, just me. I always knew I was gay and being in theater and dance from six years old, made it completely normal to me. It was the outside world that didn’t get it and even from an early age I knew I was right and they were wrong but that doesn’t count when you’re walking down a hall trying to get to that next class, desperately hoping you’ll make it to this class, this time, just once without being called a fag. Although it was obvious to everyone, things weren’t like they are today and while I know everyone in my family knew deep inside, I didn’t officially “come out” until I became involved in my first relationship at twenty-one.

Things are different today. Think about the fact that high schools now have gay-straight alliances, think about the fact that there are gays on television and representing us in congress and then think about the different world it’s going to be for the next generation of gays. When you look at all of that how can you not be grateful for the people who opposed and supported you to make you who you are today? It’s Thanksgiving so do yourself a favor and remove the chip from your shoulder (no matter how many years it’s been there) do me and yourself a favor, look around at your family and just say, “God bless us, everyone.”

A Very Beige Thanksgiving Dinner!

Our Thanksgiving meals have always looked like Calvin Klein’s collection from the 1970’s everything on the table was beige, not a green vegetable in sight. I think that growing up we all think that whatever is done in our home is pretty much what everyone else is doing. (Unless of course you’re doing human sacrifices for Thanksgiving) Our family’s philosophy was always that the more starch you could put on the table, the better for all involved (this is also good for your table cloth).

But here’s the deal, I didn’t know that this wasn’t normal until my guy pointed it out to me. Here’s a quick briefing on my guy and me – we are the poster children for hate crimes. He’s a six foot black man that was an altar boy and I’m a short Jewish guy who was bar mitzvah. On paper there’s no reason this relationship should work but it does and has for the past eighteen years (I was six when we started dating – not really, what do you think, my guy is a congressman?). We’re still madly in love and have bucked the odds by being in a completely monogamous relationship (which I believe translates to something like 8,000 years in gay years because monogamous gay years count like dog years, right?) and my heart still goes pitter-pat when he walks in the room.

The good news about being in an interfaith relationship is that holidays are never a problem. You’ll never hear my parent bemoaning the fact that we’re not spending Christmas with them. Oy vey, someday I’ll tell you what it was like the first time I went to Christmas breakfast at Michael’s parents house. Now I’m not Kosher by any means but I had no idea that there were so many parts to a pig or that they were all edible. The jury is still out for me on some of the exotic delicacies derived from Porky Pig. Tha, tha, tha, that’s all folks. (for now)

So after one of our Thanksgiving meals Michael asked the question as to why there didn’t seem to be any green vegetables on the table. Immediately defensive I said, “What do you mean? Didn’t you see the green bean casserole?” I hated to but had to admit that this green vegetable had met a beige fate in my mother’s hands. You know the casserole I’m talking about, the one with the mushroom soup and Durkee crispy onions on top, cooked to within an inch of its life? 

I started thinking back and really couldn’t place a fresh green vegetable involved anywhere with the Thanksgiving dinner or any other meal for that matter. Growing up the vegetables we had on a regular basis were creamed corn, frozen French cut green beans and LeSeur peas from a can. Not a vegetable, I know but I do remember that somewhere in the late 1980’s there started appearing cranberry “something” on the Thanksgiving table. It wasn’t sauce exactly, it was simply a can of some cranberry mixture that would be taken out of its can and if you could get it all out in one piece it retained the shape and markings of the tin can around it. I don’t recall anyone ever slicing a piece off of this traditional gelatinous cranberry log but I remember how odd it was to see something that wasn’t beige on the table.

Well over the years Michael has tried to convert my family to the way of the fresh green vegetables and fruits. I remember the year he made homemade cranberry and orange relish. My mother’s response, “Oh good, you got here before I opened the can of the real stuff.” My sister-in-law is also a green vegetable eater so when she joined the family it was even more of a reason to join the green vegetable craze. Although my mother still has no idea how to cook vegetables unless they come frozen in a bag and you can microwave them. I remember when she discovered broccoli in the late nineties, she said to me, “Guess what I ate? Broccoli! Have you ever had it? Well, I hadn’t but let me tell you it’s just delicious if you put enough butter on it.” It’s not my mother’s fault, it’s her mother’s fault, no just kidding. Our vegetables were always potatoes and if we were feeling crazy, sweet potatoes in so much brown sugar your teeth hurt. But thanks to Michael, the man of my dreams, he brought color to our family pictures and to our Thanksgiving table!

Relative Preparation - A gay man's survival guide for dealing with relatives at Thanksgiving in one blog!

Preparing yourself for Thanksgiving is so much more than shopping for those holiday foods, picking which sweaters to pack and trying to get that Prozac prescription refilled and covered by your insurance even though it hasn’t been thirty days since you last had it filled. You must prepare yourself emotionally as well as physically and this goes for those of you who self medicate by crunching up and snorting anything you can get your little hands on. That’s right I’m talking to all of you.

The trick is that no matter how much you talk to yourself prior to arriving or your guests arriving, “I do believe in spooks, I do believe in spooks!” (See The Wizard of Oz if you’re confused) There’s no stopping this freight train that is coming your way. Now you can say, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, I looove the holiday and having my family around me.” But I would say to you, “Yeah, right.” I love my family too and if you ever Google the word, “co-dependent” you’ll find our picture but when you’re forced to be in the same house with one another for an extended period of time there’s no way you’re not going to get on one another’s nerves.

Here’s the deal, start your workout now. I’m not talking about lifting weights kids I’m talking about getting prepared like you would if you were going on Jeopardy. My family is a small one but if you’ve got a larger family you must prepare yourself for the questions ahead. Here’s where if you’re out to your family there’s one set of answers and if you’re not there’s another. Allow me to provide you with some stock answers to shut up any prying relatives and/or a way to finesse (change) topics too explosive to really discuss in mixed company.

Category – The Company You Keep (usually a relative that will never ask you anything directly but will interpret it to suit their needs and tell every one of you relatives that are living or dead)

Question: So, where did you meet your “friend”?

Out Answer: Oh Aunt Ida, you’ll never believe this but we both reached for the same box of condoms and the rest is as they say, sex. 

Not Out Answer: We met when we were both waiting to get our oil changed and we discovered we both use the same lubricant.

Category – Job Security (If you’re a doctor or lawyer or in my doctor’s case, dating a lawyer then you are a Jewish mother’s wet dream so just skip this question)

Question: How long have you been working there? And what is it you do exactly?

Out Answer: Well, I’m still working in the mens department at the store but I’m hoping to be in better dresses right after the first of the year.

Not Out Answer: I’m still working retail but I’m taking a correspondence course and I’ll be a neurosurgeon if I just pass my next online exam.

Category – Current Affairs (yes, I’m talking about “those” kinds of affairs.)

Question: What do you make of all these gay scandals in the news these days?

Out Answer: Well, it’s a recipe for disaster much like Aunt Dotty’s cheesecake. You take one part holier then thou and mix it with two parts piety and you’re bound to get a rise out of someone.

Not Out Answer: I can’t discuss it I’m still verklempt over the fact Oprah’s putting the weight back on. 

Here’s the given, much like life and Mel Gibson, some you can take for longer periods than others. The real trick to holidays is maneuvering ways to spend time with the people you can stand and making the ones you can’t feel insanely jealous that they aren’t included in your circle of fun. No, let’s face it, there’s really no avoiding any of your relatives on a holiday where you’re all trapped in a house and the closest you can get to aromatherapy is the smell of turkey. (I’m just waiting for the Yankee Candle Company to come out with that scent) So do what you can to prepare yourself because as we all know the best defense is a good offense or is it the best offense is a good defense? I don’t know the coach in seventh grade gave me an “A” for NOT showing up for the entire year. The good news is that I know it’s a football reference that you can throw around if your in the “not out” category or trying to butch up the fact that you just squealed when you cracked open the Pillsbury rolls on the counter! And if all else fails, convince yourself you’re on a reality show and spend the holiday looking around trying to figure out who you would vote off!

Brothers & Sisters and A Promiscuous Gay – Don’t Get Me Started!

Some shows that I watch I’m very proud of (Dancing With The Stars, Project Runway, Oprah, etc.) some I’m not so proud of and others I get hooked into after watching an episode and before you know it I’m crying every week with Sally Field and I don’t know why. I’ve watched Brothers & Sisters from the first episode mainly for the cast. I was thrilled to be seeing Sally Field every week on television (especially without that ridiculous habit she wore as The Flying Nun) and Tom Skerritt, (who knew he was going to die in the first episode? Don’t worry they manage enough flashbacks to make him a regular). The family depicted on the show is a large one and a little too pretty to be believed but I haven’t missed an episode. I’ve liked the conflict of the brothers and sisters and been pleasantly surprised by the handling of the gay brother who is an attorney, that is until this week when it turned into Brothers & Sisters and a promiscuous gay – Don’t Get Me Started!

The show was created by Ken Olin who you may recall he and wife Patricia Wettig from Thirtysomething. (what a coincidence that she managed to get a role on this show, hmmm, funny how that works) You may also notice that this show looks and feels so much like Thirtysomething that you almost have flashbacks to it. Everyone is just a little too perfect in his or her stereotypical character. The exception this time around was with the gay brother. He had a somewhat unbelievable relationship with a cater waiter but all in all you sort of believed this character could exist in real life. That is except for the fact that just about every fifth line out of the character’s mouth to someone is, “Well, I’m gay.” This became irritating but there was still plenty of drama provided by Sally Field and Rachel Griffiths fighting her natural accent to sound American to keep you watching this show.

I Tivo it so I don’t have to put up with commercials. Imagine my surprise this week when what seemed to be a character to go down in history, a gay who was not all that histrionic became every cliché of a gay all in one episode. First the car broke down and to prove he wasn’t the gay stereotype, he poured water into the engine of his BMW instead of the radiator. That only received a raised eyebrow from me. What happened next was in an “Army bar” where there were nothing but service men and lo and behold our gay brother snags one of the soldiers with his classic line, “Well, I’m gay.” Yes, in a room filled only with military men, two brothers and a sister stranded with no hotel for the night, our gay brother finds the one gay guy in the military who’s not afraid to flirt with another guy in front of his peers (to be fair the director, Ken Olin, made sure the military men were always looking the opposite direction – sound familiar – when the flirting was taking place). What happens next is a scene so ingrained in the gay culture it’s almost comical. Fade up on the next morning, the non-gay brother and the sister get out of the car holding their backs talking about having to sleep on the floor all night while the gay brother does a huge sprawling stretch to signify he got the bed and the military man the night before.

You can say I’m a romantic but I was still hoping for a happy ending with the cater waiter that kept putting the lawyer gay in his place but no…we can’t have that happen, we need to ensure we can have all gay stereotypes explored and exploited. Why am I outraged? Because just when I thought we were going to get one of the few representations of gay men right this season on television, they have to make him the gay promiscuous stereotype. Oh I’ll keep watching and crying with Sally Field but I sure do hope that someone somewhere gets the gay character back on track. I hear their ratings haven’t been great and that does disappoint me, as it’s rare to have a drama on the air that doesn’t involve violent crime, a hospital or mediums. But please do us all a favor and let the show be what it started to be, a show about brothers and sisters and not Brothers & Sisters and a promiscuous gay – Don’t Get Me Started!

Orvis Gifts For Men – Don’t Get Me Started!

In a previous blog I discussed the deluge of catalogs that are arriving daily to my home for this holiday season. Well yesterday one arrived that has surpassed all the others for the least likely to have me order anything from it. Orvis Gifts For Men – Don’t Get Me Started!

Let me say that I have no idea what Orvis is or how the catalog even came into being. I have received it before but never was there one specifically for men that I recall. So, I figured, I’m a man, let me see what gifts are in this catalog that will make my “must have” list. It only took opening the front cover to see the handpainted toy soldiers from the civil war to understand that not only was this catalog not for this man but it wasn’t for any other man I know either. Even the models in this catalog look confused. They all look like James Denton from Desperate Housewives in about ten years. And they look desperate to get out of this catalog.

Am I wrong to think that this catalog is for a man that doesn’t exist? I must be because I’m sure that the following are at the top of your list for this holiday season…

• The bright red or green embroidered holiday cords – these feature wreaths on the red pants and candy canes on the green ones. Think about those repulsive pants with the ducks embroidered on them and then add the texture of corduroy. Hmmm. Sexy!
• The bronze mallard bottle opener for $79 – don’t get caught without one of these babies
• The bison fringed gloves for $85 – that’s right, made from genuine bison
• And of course, the limited edition pheasant carving (we used to call them decoys and only non-Jews have them in a study on a book shelf or something) for $249

Is it I that I simply don’t get it? This catalog is filled with items that are for the mythical stereotypical male that doesn’t exist. The only man I could see using half of this shit is the Marlboro man. Who walks around with a leather hand tooled “quick draw cell phone holster”? And who are these people who have an entire catalog dedicated to the stereotypical representation of the straight man, it’s not like us gays have anything like that. Well, hmmm, sure there is the International Male catalog but a lot of misguided straight guys sport some of those “fashions” too (unfortunately for them). The only gays who might possibly be wearing any of the crap in this Orvis catalog are the ones that didn’t get the memo that last year was the year to walk around looking like Brokeback Mountain, not this year.

I know it “takes all kinds” as my father says and that I need to be more tolerant but it just pisses me off to see another tree give its life to the likes of this catalog. Desktop cedar canoe, $179, single gun case, $139, “The Gift Of A Lifetime: The Orvis Fly Fishing School”, priceless. Well, not to me dammit. Orvis Gifts For Men – Don’t Get Me Started!

Pontificating People – Don’t Get Me Started!

In the movie Annie Hall, Woody Allen and Diane Keaton are standing on line waiting to get in to see a movie. There’s a guy behind them pontificating about the director of the movie they are about to see. Woody Allen turns to the camera and says something like “What I wouldn’t give for a sock filled with horse manure right now.” Mr. Allen, I couldn’t agree with him more. Pontificating people – Don’t Get Me Started!

Starbucks seems to be the worst for the pontificators. They stand in line on their cell phones screaming at whoever is on the other line with, “I’m telling you right now, he is not worth your time, you need to move on. I know, I know, so what I’ve been on Maury fourteen times and I don’t know who the baby’s daddy is on any of my eight kids but listen to me girl. I will straighten your life right out.” Or Barry Businessman, “No Steve, I need the numbers today. That is completely unacceptable. Let me tell you, I didn’t get to be the Vice President (probably the Vice President in charge of finding the right lids to his mother’s Tupperware) by not getting the numbers in, that much I can tell you.”

And the ultimate pontificators…the religious people. <my head bowed and tilted on a slight angle and my eyes downcast to the floor> God love these people (because no one else does). I don’t care what religious beliefs you have just keep them to yourself, please. I can’t stand to listen to them go on and on. I had some Mormonians come to my door once. You know the drill, two boys on bikes with white shirts, black pants and a skinny black tie. All accented beautifully with their colorful bike riding helmets and their backpacks full of sh…well, let’s just say they’re full of something. So I answer the door and they lead right off with the classic, “Hello, Jesus loves you.” I’m like, “Great, I live to be popular. Now did I sleep with or date this Jesus fellow or what?” No actually I was really respectful and just used my classic line, “Thanks, but I’m Jewish.” As I’m trying to close the door, they start in, “Jesus doesn’t care that you’re Jewish, he loves you.” What followed was about five excruciating minutes that I believe were as painful as having your gums scraped by a raccoon with rabies. On and on they went about the teachings of Jesus and why I needed to accept him into my heart. I tried everything, I played the Jewish card, the gay card, I even tried the “I’ve got something in the oven” (what did I think I was Donna Reed?) card and finally the “go fish” card (figuring they like the whole fish on the car thing – read that blog…People With THE FISH On Their Car - Don't Get Me Started!) and nothing would stop them, they were relentless. 

We all know I’m very opinionated, just ask me. But I don’t go around trying to convince everyone to see things my way very loudly in public places, that’s what this blog is for people! So please, even if you’ve figured a way to solve the world energy crisis or you’re the only one Jesus called to tell he’s making a comeback soon, just keep it to yourself. No one likes to hear another person go on and on acting like an expert in everything from relationships to how to suck helium properly so that your voice stays funnier longer. I’ve found that the cliché to be true, the people who do the most talking know the least. So please pontificating people – Don’t Get Me Started!

Nuke The Gay Baby Penguins – Don’t Get Me Started!

I don’t know how many of you have heard about the two male penguins in the New York zoo that found an abandoned egg, hatched it and have raised the baby as their own. Well, now there’s a children’s book about the real-life partners raising their adopted baby and some parents in Illinois aren’t asking for the book to be pulled from school library shelves or burned as one might think, no they just want the book to be segregated into a “special” section so that parents can choose when their child is ready to hear about the “special” penguins. Oh please don’t stop by just segregating the book, let’s go all the way, shall we? Let’s get really ridiculous and cover all areas and nuke the gay baby penguins – Don’t Get Me Started!

Here’s the deal, I know that a lot of people say that you aren’t born gay and that there is no homosexuality in nature. Okay, maybe these two penguins are just pals, you know like Ernie and Bert from Sesame Street who are now in their forties and still living together or Hall and Oates (made you think, didn’t I), or maybe even Ponch and Jon from C.H.I.P.S. (okay, maybe that last one was just me dating myself and revealing too much about what I thought about when I watched the show as a kid).

I guess my question is whether or not these parents think they’re being politically correct or worse yet, “gracious” by not asking for a full on ban of this book but just segregation? Frankly I almost wish that they would just show their true colors and ask for the ban because we all know that deep down that’s what they really want.  It’s like this person I used to know (get the “used to”) who said to me once, “I don’t think that gays should be allowed in the military because they have to be in such tight quarters and well, you know. But then I think about you and what if you wanted to be in the military? As your friend I would want you to be able to be in the military. I’m just torn.” Well, it wasn’t long before I tore myself away from that friendship. You see, I can take someone not liking me because I’m gay or Jewish or the hundred thousand other things I am if they just say it to my face but don’t try to act as if you’re my friend or you’re doing me the favor of tolerating me because you’re such a good person. Please just go ahead and be hateful to my face. I’ve dealt with it before and I’m sure that I will again.

The thing to remember here is that this is not some Lifetime Television For Women And The Gays (the gay part is just implied by every piece of programming on that network). It is real life, it’s what happened and IS happening, these two penguins didn’t see the twelve million interviews about Rosie and Kelly about their kids or Melissa Etheridge and say, “Gee, that looks fun! Let’s do that too!” It just happened, a lot like it does for a lot of us. I didn’t ask to be born gay and I also knew that my life was going to be different because of my gayness but I never thought for one moment of putting myself on a separate shelf away from everything that wasn’t gay.

Having just written that I’m thinking about all of the gays who DO think that they can only live in a gay neighborhood, shop at gay stores and have gay friends. I don’t get these people at all. I mean how can you hold the word “diversity” in everyone’s face and then say, “I knew a straight person once.” Believe me, these people are out there but I have to think and hope that they are the minority. Much like when my friend converted to Judaism, she was a lot more Jewish than me for a long time. Or my cousin when he came out, he couldn’t get through a sentence without it featuring the word, “gay”. (I let him know in short order that I was the Gaytriarch of the family and that he didn’t have to include the word “gay” as every forth word to keep his membership card).

The thing is that we’re all going to hate something or someone. I, for example, hate the men with well-defined arms and six pack abs. I know you’re going to tell me that I’m being too narrow-minded but I’ve gone ahead and admitted it. I’ll even stare at them when I see them at the gym just to let them know where I stand but come on, how can you hate the penguins? They’re so well dressed and they walk so cute! How about when Dick Van Dyke pulled his pants down (before it was cool) and danced with the animated penguins in Mary Poppins? It’s a children’s book, it has illustrations (that don’t look like The Joy of Gay Sex) and what these parents really don’t like and won’t tell you is that what really bothers them is the page that says the baby penguin has “two daddies”. Putting the book on a different shelf isn’t going to solve this problem; we have to get rid of those real-life deviant penguins! Nuke the gay baby penguins – Don’t Get Me Started!

Please, Thank You And Turn Signals – Don’t Get Me Started!

My guy of eighteen years, Michael has always said to me that the world would be a different and better place if everyone said, “Please, thank you and used their turn signals” – Don’t Get Me Started!

Where IS common courtesy anymore? Does it exist? I try to hold doors open, say good morning to people when our eyes meet and generally do the right thing but what gets me is that this is just me in my normal everyday life. Can someone (anyone) explain to me why when I purchase something at a store, that nine times out of ten, I’m the one that says, “thank you” and NOT the person behind the counter, whose salary I’m helping to pay? I don’t care if you work in a grocery store or if you’re working at Armani, I expect a little please and thank you. Is that really so much to ask? I think not but more often than not I’m treated like an inconvenience or that I should be thankful the person behind the counter has managed to acknowledge me let alone take my money. I’ve heard all the excuses about it being generational and all the other crap and frankly I’m just not buying. You see whether humans or monkeys raised you, by the time you are old enough to get a job you should know about some elementary manners. It always amazes me how grateful I feel when I DO get good guest service. Sure there are exceptions, go to Nordstrom and they’ll please and thank you all day but I’m sure you’ve all experienced what I’m talking about it most stores and until Nordstrom carries groceries, we’ll have to shop other places for certain things.

Now onto the next Mr. Gay Manners issue for today…turn signals. I understand that I live in Las Vegas and I’m convinced that if you’re license has been revoked or you’re just a lousy driver, a welcome kit to move to Las Vegas appears automatically at your door. I’ve driven in LA and New York and nothing compares to the crappy driving I face every day in Vegas. Accidents are the norm and they are largely due to the fact that when a light turns red in Vegas you had better wait at least three seconds before entering the intersection because the people who have the red light seem to feel that it’s like the rule you had as a kid for eating something that landed on the floor, if you pick it up within three seconds, it’s okay to eat. Apparently the same thing applies with drivers and red lights here in Vegas, if the light turns red you have an additional three seconds to still “make it”. I’m convinced that no one actually has working turn signals on their cars because I never see anyone actually use them. The first year we lived here around Thanksgiving the anchor on the evening news, with a completely straight face, said, “And please remember folks, that if you’re planning on driving in another state this holiday season, please use your turn signals and remember that you shouldn’t go through red lights.” This was not some “reminder” it was almost an actual plea to follow the rules when you’re somewhere else so that no one will find out about our horrific drivers.

I know that I can be demanding but I really don’t think that I’m asking for too much when looking for a little common courtesy. I’m not asking for Oprah and Bono to team up or for Michael Jackson to update “We Are The World”. All I want is a little please, thank you and turn signals – Don’t Get Me Started! 

Wrap It Up! – Don’t Get Me Started!

Not many people know this but I am a professional wrapper. That’s right, I was employed at one point in the gift-wrapping department in a major department store back in the day. I call myself a “professional” because they always came to me when it was time for the oversized or oddly shaped packages. I never met a package I couldn’t wrap and to this day, I do all the wrapping at holiday time for family and friends. But today I was in a store and I saw that the Dorito’s bag has a festive holiday wrap. Give me a break and wrap it up – Don’t Get Me Started!

Now believe me when I say that I get the power behind putting a wrap on things. My parents once owned a drugstore and instead of getting new Russell Stover’s candy in for the holidays, Russell would just send the plastic “holiday” wrap for the old boxes and we’d simply slip it over the end of the box. (always check the date on everything) If that box of candy didn’t sell, the wrap came off after the holidays and you waited to see if it was getting the Easter wrap. However, that’s candy, a suitable last minute drugstore gift for someone you don’t know well or just got invited to their house for dinner. I get why Russell and the rest of the candy people would create wraps for their boxes but come on, chips?

I can just see it now; you arrive at your boyfriend’s parents for the holidays and you’ve brought them the bag of chips with the red bow drawn on the front. Well, that’s bound to impress them and endear them to you. Even at the office party, don’t the chips go in a bowl? I don’t feel the need to have wrapping paper drawn on my chips or my soda thank you. I mean, come on, what’s next, luncheon meat?

And don’t try to tell me that it makes it nicer when you arrive at someone’s house to have the fake wrapped chips. Is that supposed to be a gift? Some gift, “Here Helen, I wanted to give you this extra ten pounds around your waistline and clog some of your arteries, Happy Holidays!” Chips and sodas just aren’t gifts, this I can tell you. Even if you’re helping the homeless or those less fortunate do you really think that the wrapped soda is going to give them that warm and fuzzy feeling? “Sorry, I didn’t get you a turkey that you could eat off of for a week because I just couldn’t take my eyes off of this six pack with the red bow imprinted on it! It’s so festive, don’t you think?” No, I don’t, I think it’s an illness that manufacturer’s have thinking that anything even remotely associated with the holidays will sell more than your every day product so they’re going to start mock wrapping everything. It won’t be long before your motor oil goes festive and the Quaker Oats guy has a Santa hat on!

The thing is that I get it, we all like pretty things but I can’t help believe that somewhere along the line we’ve crossed the line and there’s no going back. Maybe this is just my high cholesterol talking but I don’t want the things that are so horrendous for me to be wrapped up with a bow. Here are things I do like to see wrapped, new cars, diamond jewelry, anything electronic and chocolate covered pretzels. I know, I broke my own rule but come on, how can you possibly resist chocolate covered pretzels? And they should only be for special occasions as they are way too yummy to have on a regular basis. I even get the small sized toiletry products having a festive wrap on them as a stocking stuffer but when you start to put drawn bows on condoms and hemorrhoid creams I say you’ve gone too far. Too far, I tell you! So stop it! Wrap it up – Don’t Get Me Started!

Cavalcade Of Catalogs – Don’t Get Me Started!

Now I like to look through a catalog like everyone else but the yearly catalog deluge has begun featuring everything from pet supplies to those horrible Radko ornaments and my home is being overrun by catalogs. I can’t escape them, I feel like one of those crazy people who have stacks of stuff all over their house and they make a path to the bed and the bathroom, other than that, every surface is covered. Cavalcade of catalogs – Don’t Get Me Started!

I have actually done some catalog shopping through the years but now with the invention of the Internet I don’t see the need for everyone to kill yet another rainforest by sending the whole catalog out. Can’t they just send a card that has the web address to their catalog? I mean I like excess as much as the next guy but this just seems ridiculous. Much like the amount the politicians spent on their recent campaigns, I think we all need to just say, “No!” and have these people put their money into helping the homeless or our broken health care system.

The other problem I have with all these catalogs is one that you see everywhere, so much Christmas so little for Jews. I know, I know, we’re a minority and it’s all about the Savior’s birth but it kills me every year when I walk into a store completely decked out and find that the Hanukkah stuff has been exiled to a small end cap on one row. Did you also know that if you go in Hallmark that “our” cards are not only on the bottom of the shelves but they’re about 40% smaller than Christmas cards and don’t even come in a box, they’re shrink wrapped? I don’t know if the card makers are thinking this makes them easier to travel because the Christians think that we’re probably going to be following Moses to the Holy Land for the holidays and will need to pack light or they think if they make the cards smaller and don’t put them in a box, we Jews will think we’re getting a good deal. Thing is, they don’t even come in the usual amounts either, they’re like 10 or 12 cards to a box instead of the 20 to 25 you get in Christmas cards. I can only assume this is because they think that Jewish people know less people and don’t want to have any left over.

Catalogs do the same thing to us Jews. Now I’m one of the ones that says, “Let them have Christmas”  (Let Them Have Christmas - Don't Get Me Started!) but come on, looking at a recent well known museum catalog, they devoted more than half of the catalog to Christmas cards and Christmas merchandise and the one page for Jews had a Chagall print, one menorah and a card that had Hebrew on the front of it but was blank inside. I think the cards came eight to a package – perhaps because Hanukkah has eight nights and/or Jews should only know eight other Jews or something.

Whether the catalog has Christmas stuff in it, silly gag gifts, or is even the catalog with everything Jewish in it, I just can’t take that they’ve all descended upon me like relatives I don’t want to see. I wish there was a practical use for all of these damn things. I suppose I could tear them in strips, make intertwining loops with the use of a stapler or glue creating a recycled looking garland for the entire city of Las Vegas but who has the time or energy for that? No, I’m stuck with every week hauling them out to the garbage only to find another load of catalogs the mailperson has brought me. They’re like the Tribbles from Star Trek, they’re cute at first but then they just keep multiplying and get on your last nerve. Stop the insanity, stop the cavalcade of catalogs – Don’t Get Me Started!

I live in Vegas so many people just assume that I go to all the clubs and shows on a weekly basis. They expect me to be a modern day Rona Barrett (Google her if you’ve never heard of her) but I rarely go to the latest, greatest, hippest or hoppest places. However, today is my birthday so a friend (who is also having a birthday around mine) came in from LA with her husband and her sixteen closest friends. I was meeting them for dinner last night and as luck would have it, they had an extra ticket to Prince’s club at the Rio that had just opened on Friday so I figured, “Why not? How often do I get an opportunity to see Prince? Or go out? Or have a wild Vegas time on my birthday?” And so I went and now that I’ve paid my $130, all I can say is Prince 3121 – Don’t Get Me Started!

The name of the club is 3121 based on his most recent album but no one seems to know what it stands for, means or why we should care. I just have to assume that it’s his height and his inseam. So we get there at like 10:15pm or something, supposedly you really need to be there by 10:00pm but we were at a Greek restaurant and you can’t leave when the belly dancer is on and the owner comes out and literally throws a wad of singles in the air as if the dancer was in one of those booths where the money goes swirling around you and you try to catch as much as you can on an old game show. But I digress…back to life, back to reality.

So the line is enormous and we’re at the back now because they wouldn’t let some of us in until our entire party was there – you know, sort of like waiting for a table at Denny’s. However due to some string pulling by the people who had coordinated getting the tickets for the whole gang (all strangers to me, save my friend and her husband) we eventually get in around twenty minutes later. The club is pretty standard and it’s clear we’re going to be standing about 200 yards away from the stage on the dance floor all night. The DJ is spinning old Prince mixed with some other great “old school” tunes and the video screens that line the walls are playing clips from Prince’s movies, Saturday Night Fever and blacksploitation movies.  Cool, huh? So were standing there as the rest of the crowd starts coming in and we think that The Prince is going to go on at around 11pm. So we all get drinks and we’re kind of doing the kind of dancing you’d do in a full elevator if the Musak was better. Just some swaying and some limited arm movement, the kind a tyrannous saurus rex would be doing if he was “getting down” due to his short arms. You could try to pick your feet up but seriously, I have not encountered a floor that’s sticky since going to the movie Earthquake in the seventies when everyone was so shocked they just threw popcorn, sodas and everything else on the floor.

A guy starts talking to us who is from Chicago, was on a plane at 1pm to get to Vegas and had been in line since 8pm or something to get in. A regular (probably straight) looking guy with his ears pierced many times who proclaims, “I hope he humps the stage, the mic stand, everything. I want to see him do it all!” As you look around the crowd you notice that people have really “dressed up” for this occasion. There was the girl with the purple satin opera length gloves on (I can only hope they had been part of a bridesmaid dress or a Miss Piggy costume and she was trying to get additional use out of them), there was the guy with the brocade looking silk shirt that for some reason had an appliqué of a green dollar sign on one side – is that fashion or faux pas? And a guy with enough product in his hair to take care of everyone with his Versace tight long sleeved t-shirt on which had the name on it to make sure everyone knew who made the thing and the tightest black pants in recorded history. Unfortunately, and there’s no easy way to say it, he was unworthy of the whole outfit. Everything was very tight in the clothes department but not so much in the body department and I think that all the product in the hair was supposed to distract us from the face. But most were just your regular guys and gals, mostly in their late thirties or forties. It seemed to me that the bulk of the white folk were on the dance floor while the black and hardcore fans were sitting at the “tables” which here in Vegas cost about $5,000 to start with and then you pay for bottle service – meaning that you have to buy a $28 bottle of Absolut for $250 to keep sitting at the table.

Finally it’s 12:06am and the DJ (with her hair that looks like Sheila E from the eighties) announces that we’re getting ready to start. The video screens all go to the whirling ampersand sign or whatever the hell that sign is that stands for Prince. We’re pumped, the crowd is pushing a little closer to the stage and the purple curtain opens and there he is, I think. I was the shortest person in the crowd that I was with and most of the people in the room so everyone immediately started waving me over to a different place where I might be able to actually see him, like I was kid at a parade. Now don’t forget that he is like 31 inches tall or something so you would think that they would have elevated him a bit more or something. Finally, I got a straight view through the crowd and could see his head, like a floating head in a séance and maybe a little bit of the shoulders of his orange dayglow suit. He started with a version of the Chuck Berry classic Johnny B. Good and already you could tell the band was amazing. He then segued into an odd heavy metal sounding guitar solo that was playing, dare I say it, “Over The Rainbow” as the lights overhead created a half-ass rainbow like effect on the stage. There were two girls who sang and undulated who he called “The Twins” who were okay but nothing so hot or so fabulous that you wanted to see them anywhere other than on a GoGo box.

What followed was a very strange almost two hours. In the whole concert the only song other than Johnny B. Good that I recognized was Cream. Now I found out later that the reason he had turned himself into an ampersand was a dispute with Sony and he could only sing 90 seconds of any song he did with Sony. But surely he could have ended with a kick ass medley of his hits, each one lasting no longer than 90 seconds! No, instead it was two hours of everyone hearing the first few notes and doing that unspoken, “Hmmm…No, I don’t know this one either. Well, I’m sure the next one will be Purple Rain, I’ll just go with it.” But it never was Purple Rain or anything else that I wanted to hear. In fact, there’s a tribute band here that we go to sometimes locally called, “Purple Reign” that actually does all the Prince classics and is awesome. It costs no where near the $130 I paid to listen to Prince basically ramble for two hours and make me scream “3121” numerous times (even though no one and I fear even he didn’t know what it meant). In between the songs he would get the crowd riled up by saying, “You don’t love me Vegas like I love you. Do you love me?” Sort of like a needy boyfriend. Then he would say, “Sing it!” almost demanding the crowd sing his unrecognizable tune as he tilted the mic to the audience. Now I didn’t know any of these songs but amazingly enough, there were a ton of straight white guys in the audience who knew every word and acted like a high school girl seeing the Beatles every time Prince would talk to the crowd. Like Jews when someone dies, there was so much screaming, crying and tearing of clothes and much like Morales in A Chorus Line, I felt nothing. At one point he walked all the way to the back of the club (I think, who could see him? He really is like Tom Thumb of the music world) and when he finally was making his way back to the stage he told us all that there was one God, Jehovah and we need to know that. Guess no one needs to go to church today as we’ve been to the church of ampersand! The crowd wooed him back for a couple encores, I still think hoping he would say, “Let’s go crazy, let’s get nuts” but other than telling us about Jehovah, making us scream “3121” he didn’t seem very interested in doing more than singing his non-hits.

Watching the people leave the concert, you could see a lot of people looking around at each other, waiting for someone to be the little boy in the crowd to say that the Emperor (or Prince in this case) had no clothes. He had two hours of artistic masturbation. I truly think he’s the only one who got anything out of it. We got two costumes from him, two girls for dancers/backup singers, two hours of waiting for two hours of non-hits. As my friend said, “Maybe the 3121 stands for 31 songs you don’t know and 21 of your favorites you’re not going to hear. I’m sure that he’ll continue to draw in the tourists at those prices but all I could think about was my $130 and say, “this is what it sounds like when gays cry.” Prince 3121 – Don’t Get Me Started!

Madonna And Oatmeal – Don’t Get Me Started!

I’ve joined the oatmeal movement. After recently getting a not so great report at my doctor on my cholesterol, I decided to start eating oatmeal every morning (except this morning, when I had an everything bagel – okay, I’m a Jew and I’m only human so sue me). So I’m talking to a really good friend of mine yesterday, telling her all about it and she says to me, “Oh that’s great. Remember when Madonna was eating two bowls of oatmeal a day during her Express Yourself tour and her arms looked so great?” First of all, I don’t really remember Madonna’s big oatmeal campaign and furthermore as I told my friend, I hardly think that it was the oatmeal that made her arms look great. Madonna and oatmeal – Don’t Get Me Started!

Now I like Madonna just as much as the next gay guy but it does get on my nerves when celebrities come out with diet or workouts and we’re supposed to believe that by eating oatmeal she got arms like Mario Lopez. (I can’t help it, I’m addicted to Dancing With The Stars and every time they show that shot at the start of the show of Mario and his dancing partner, all you see are these amazing arms. I promise once the finale is done this week I’ll bet I have a lot less Mario Lopez references, stay tuned) My point is that I get it. I get that Madonna can spend all day with a Pilates trainer, only eating oatmeal and end up looking amazing. For the rest of us, without the trainer the oatmeal is never going to get us to the point where we want to “express ourselves” in a leotard and pointy bras. (Not that there’s anything wrong with wearing those things if you’re so inclined)

I think it’s hysterical that so many female comedians are so excited about Oprah putting back on the pounds, this to me indicates that they feel the way we do about them. Roseanne basically had her stomach removed and look at her; she’s back to her heaviest. Even Kirstie Alley for all her Jenny Craig, did we really need to see her in a bikini this past week on Oprah? I think not. The thing is, that when a normal, every day person is walking around with their fattitude hanging over their low rise jeans and crop top we find the need to point and laugh. But when Kirstie Alley shows up with her thunder thighs in a bikini (she has about as much right wearing as me), the studio audience goes crazy and talks about how brave she is for showing off her still very ample “assets”. Celebrities have trainers and Jenny Craig even gave Kirstie Alley a food Nazi that basically just hangs around saying, “You can’t eat that…a minute on the lips a lifetime on the hips!” I mean, where do you sign up for these jobs? Where do you get the job of the personal trainer of Oprah who watches her and Gail wolf down sundaes and pork rinds across the country on their road trip, shake his head on camera and then come out with a fitness book that will sell a bazillion copies because Oprah endorses it?

Thing is that these people have help, lots of it. They do not just “do it on their own” and don’t bore me with their schedules and that their life is so difficult. If they wanted to they could have an IV drip in their arm and never eat again. If they wanted to they could have their makeup person shade in their cheekbones until they look like they came from Auschwitz. But for us normal folk, we can eat all the oatmeal we want and it’s never going to give us the body of Madonna, the cholesterol of a fourteen year old or Mario Lopez’ arms. So I say, Madonna and oatmeal – Don’t Get Me Started!

The Greatest Never Was Been There’s Ever Been – Don’t Get Me Started!

This is the title of my new book, the one that I’ve just started writing, will find it impossible to find a publisher for and then you’ll most likely see it on my website somewhere, unless of course I make my own copies and sell it in parking lots of Borders, trying to look somewhat literate. But I digress. The new book (as fabulous as it will undoubtedly be) is not the topic of this blog, well not directly anyway. The deal is, for those of us who have spent our entire lives clawing and scratching for our own fifteen minutes of fame (which remain largely elusive) it just makes me crazy when others get such an easy ride of it. That’s right, I’m talking about K-Fed, Kevin Federline. I know a lot of people are writing about him and his complete lack of talent, etc. But he DID have a talent, a talent for fooling someone really famous into liking him, backing him and ultimately putting him on the cover of People more than once. So I say to the no talent, good for you! For although K-Fed is stupid and untalented, he’ll never be the greatest never was been there’s ever been – Don’t Get Me Started!

There are so many people who fall into the “almost was been” category that it boggles the mind. The first one I can really think of was Kato Kaelin. Here’s someone who has no talent, was a pool boy (basically) yet we all know his name and he can still get a job as a host of a syndicated court show. There are so many of these types that they actually made an entire show for these people, The Surreal Life. That’s right, if you are an “almost was been” you can probably still make money lecturing, appearing on a reality show and/or appearing occasionally on a Saturday Night Live or Mad TV sketch making fun of yourself. Reality television has created the new version of “celebrity” and I’m bitter that I’m not one of them and that they aren’t as good as the celebrities of yesterday all at the same time. That’s right, once again I’m shocked and appalled!

Think about it for a second. Think about Charro. Do you have the coochi-coochi picture in your head? Here’s a woman that you really can’t put your finger on what she did as her “talent” but she entertained you on her numerous talk show appearances and thirty-five times on the Love Boat just by having an accent. Now take “New York” from the Flavor of Love show. Not only did she not win the reality love connection competition (well, if you’ve seen Flavor Flav you know that she DID win by not winning him) she has no talent whatsoever, in fact if they listed her talents, it would probably read like this, “good at throwing attitude, making out with men for publicity, wears a weave really well.”  However, she no doubt has an agent as she now is going to have her own show to see if she can find her dream man. This will be like watching the crack ho version of The Bachelor and you know what? Much like the Flavor of Love train wreck of a show, I’m sure that it will receive really high ratings.

“Almost was beens” to the left and right of me, getting their own shows, lengthening their fifteen minutes with custody battles and rehab and yet some of us with our many talents may only be discovered by our pets as they watch us lip synch in our living rooms. Sad really, isn’t it? Sad that we’ve reduced our culture to creating celebrities out of the hanger ons of almost non-celebrities instead of people like me who deserve it. From Bob Merrill’s classic lyrics to the song I’m The Greatest Star from Funny Girl (Broadway and Movie) “I’m the greatest star, I am by far, but no one knows it. That’s why I was born. I’ll blow my horn ‘til someone blows it.” Even if I’m not the greatest “star”, I AM the greatest never was been there’s ever been – Don’t Get Me Started!

3-1-1 – Don’t Get Me Started!

Long have I shared my disgust with the lack of glamour when it comes to travel in this day and age of modern transportation. I travel quite a bit for work but most of my trips are short ones from Las Vegas to Los Angeles where my company’s home office is located. I am and have always been a “rule follower” which means that if someone tells me that something is supposed to be done a certain way, that’s exactly how I do it. So when the recent liquid scare gripped the airport industry, I decided that I would just put my liquid products in a bag and check my luggage. I didn’t really understand the stipulations on what liquids I could bring in my carry on bag and I just frankly decided (like a lot of people) that it was better to “case it” than carry it. But on Monday I had to go to LA for three days. I didn’t want to check luggage, it seemed ridiculous for such a short trip. So I went online to read all I could about the new rules and regulations. Well, prepare yourself for the dumbest thing the Travel Security Administration people have come up with as their new campaign to help travelers 3-1-1 – Don’t Get Me Started!

Now you’re going to have no idea what these numbers stand for or why they’re choosing them for their new marketing campaign to supposedly educate and make security lines go faster. Prepare yourself – the 3 stands for 3 ounces, the first one stands for 1 quart sized clear plastic bag and the other 1 stands for one bag per person. Like a basement sale at Filene’s as many 3 ounce bottles you can cram into that quart sized bag is just fine just don’t let any individual bottle be more than 3 ounces. They go even further to say the bag has to zip at the top – enter the marketing tie-in with Ziploc.

I’m not proud that it takes several products to make me look the way I do every day but I’ve also resigned myself to the fact. I used to love shopping for all of those “travel sized” products but now I just find them expensive and never the real products I use. However, for the sake of 3-1-1 I decided to sacrifice my brand of designer shave cream and go for the drugstore equivalent due to the fact it came in a 2.5 ounce size. So all told, I think I had a total of 32 ounces when all was said and done in my bulging baggie.

As I was standing there in line at security with my shoes and belt off, my laptop under my arm and now my baggie, I felt a little like this was prison or showering in the dorm. Is it wrong to feel “exposed” standing there in your socks, trying to juggle everything that has to go in a bin or on the belt? Not to mention, any time you get a Jew in a line with all their belongings in their hands and make them walk through something, there’s bound to be an ethnic flashback of epic proportions. “Yes, I have my boarding pass still on me and I’m hurrying, Mr. Himmler! Thanks for the yellow star and pink triangle!”

And how about the attitude about what goes in a bin or the belt? That is a whole other scene. I love when you dump everything in the first bin you see just to get organized, uncrimp your arms and immediately you hear, “UM, THE SHOES HAVE TO GO ON THE BELT BY THEMSELVES NOT IN A BIN! <<big sigh>> And nothing else can be in the bin with your laptop, sir <<said with so much sarcasm, you think Jon Lovitz is now working for the TSA>>”

As I was putting all of my things on the belt and in bins, I see a TSA person walking quickly around holding something almost at shoulder level from him, going from station to station like he was holding a bomb. What was it, you ask? It was a Mother Freakin’ Snow Globe!! That’s right you read correctly. This was no small snow globe either, we’re talking full coffee table sized snow storm here. Meanwhile there’s this forty-something-should-know-better woman walking behind him as if shocked she couldn’t bring the damn thing on with her flailing her arms in disgust. Okay, now I may be too much of a rule follower having been on the web site and adhered to every single policy to the letter but come on, at this point shouldn’t we all know that you can’t bring something like that on? (Especially if it plays Music of the Night or Memory) I was prepared to bring the whole airport to a halt if they let the bitch through security with that thing but they were still looking for a supervisor and she was now on her cell phone screaming about the TSA guy as she’s walking right behind him (subtle) as if it’s his fault for her stupidity as my seventeen hundred things were whizzing down the belt system at me so I decided to just move along.

As my items are careening toward me down the belt and I’m trying to get everything back on and in my bags like Ethel and Lucy wrapping chocolate, I had to wonder if I had really “saved” myself time, energy or anything else by not checking the bag with my “life sized” brand named liquids and gels. But I won’t give the bag handler terrorists the satisfaction of ripping my luggage and bending the wheels for a three day trip.

And so there I was - one of the few who dared to follow all the rules and have carry-on luggage. It made me proud and sad at the same time. (I was totally elated that there was so much less fighting over overhead bin space!) The TSA thinks they have it all figured out and as someone who travels a lot, I am confident that once again, they have no clue what they’re doing and their new restrictions will not keep us safer. The new campaign? What does it really stand for? 3 people per day will kill 1 TSA person or 1 other passenger over this dumb campaign. 3-1-1- Don’t Get Me Started!

If You're Gellin', You're A Felon - Don't Get Me Started!

Skip Bagging – Don’t Get Me Started!

As someone with little to no patience on a regular basis, I really like the idea of self-checkout but the reality is that it just sucks. It seems like it’s going to be so great and yet today as I was standing there trying to use this system, scanning and re-scanning and scanning once more, having it tell me there was an unexpected item in the bagging area, suddenly the red light went off high atop my head and yet no one seemed to care so I just hit – Skip Bagging – Don’t Get Me Started!

That’s right for every can of tuna (five for four dollars) the, “skip bagging” button would come up and wouldn’t go off no matter how hard I threw the cans in the plastic bag. Over and over again I threw the now dented cans in the bag hoping it would register that I had actually put them in the bag but oh no, of course it didn’t. I even thought about sitting on that little fucking platform hoping my weight might be similar enough to a can of tuna (shut up, stop laughing). I looked into the laser reader so many times I think I gave myself my own lasix surgery today at the supermarket. So what else could I do? I just started hitting that “skip bagging” button for everything to make it go to the next screen but that meant I had to hold everything. I was looking like one of those bad variety acts from 1950’s television, stacking cans of tuna in one arm, looking for the code on my onion and hitting the keypad to continue with the other, all to the non-amazement of the line of seven hundred people that had lined up behind me. But of course due to all of the “skip bagging” presses, I had locked myself out of the system and like the police pulling me over, the large red beacon started spinning about overhead to indicate I was a troublemaker. The woman standing at the podium, pulpit of technological groceryness looks over to me and I say almost guilty and pleading, “The cans of tuna weren’t registering right so I just kept hitting “skip bagging”. Sorry, no I didn’t mean to throw that can of tuna at you. I’m Jewish and gay and we gesture a lot and having these cans in my arms really cuts down on my ability to communicate.” She says very loudly, “It wasn’t the tuna, sir, it was the mixed green pre-washed salad. <big sigh> I’m clearing it for you now. <eye roll>” All I could think was, what if I was purchasing hemorrhoid cream or something and she just yelled it out that way?

Needless to say, I was frustrated, mortified and having a little trouble seeing (probably due to the self-lasix). I couldn’t get out of that store fast enough. Now what really pisses me off about this whole thing is that I’m one of the people who actually KNOW how to use this system. I can look up codes and do even the most advance procedures on that machine, I mean to tell you I rock on those things. But due to computer malfunction, I know everyone behind me thought I was one of those first-time users. Who by the way, they should have a line for the moron first-time losers, I mean users who seem completely oblivious to everyone behind them as they look at the keypad as if someone from NASA has asked them to enter the launch codes but hasn’t given them the actual codes so they just have to keep pushing buttons trying to crack the code like Russell Crowe in that Pretty Mind movie.

I can’t take it I tell you. They make it seem so great, the whole self-checkout thing but they don’t work. What I really think is that the cashiers, in fear of losing their jobs to machines just every once in a while walk past and kick those machines to tilt them like a pinball machines or smear some Vaseline on the readers so that they won’t scan properly. I know that eventually someone like me is going to crack and just rip that machine apart.

And who do they put at the pulpit of technological scientology? It’s always the most bitter of the cashiers, I presume the one who didn’t memorize the code for kiwis and is now stuck at the self-checkout having to act as if she wants to help you. Rest assured she doesn’t want to help you. She’s caught between not wanting the machines to work so that she can go back to working the registers and crucifying my name as she tells me about the four cents I saved and asking me if I need help out to my car with my one bag of groceries that cost me $37 or having to actually help people because the machines keep breaking down. Basically, this person is screwed but see I don’t care about her I care about me. Me, with my many cans of tuna juggling act, me, with the announcement of my groceries to everyone in the area, me, with people thinking I’m an amateur. The only way to avoid all of this is to order online and have the groceries delivered and then I can really “skip bagging” – Don’t Get Me Started!

Enough Already With The Velour Jogging Suits Ladies – Don’t Get Me Started! 

The Juicy craze of velour jogging suits is officially dead. I was in the supermarket today and there was this woman in front of me with a pair of one of the knock off Juicy velour pants on. God only knows where the jacket was but the pants, dear Lord. They had been washed and stretched so much they looked like she was trying to wear the Velveteen Rabbit! I could see every bump, lump and dimple of cellulite on this woman. Did she really think this was attractive or even acceptable to walk out of her house looking like this? Enough already with the velour jogging suits ladies – Don’t Get Me Started!

Yes, we all know that celebrities of the 90’s wore the Juicy velour suits (to death) that showed off their curves and everything else and some even included a word on their ass but ladies, your bodies (on the whole) don’t look like theirs and they were never all that attractive on you so just stop already. 

<Sung to Barry Manilow’s classic, Copacabana> “You’re name’s not JLO you aren’t a showgirl, and that was five long years ago when Juicy used to have a show now they’re old fashioned, and out of style, don’t put them on your big fat ass cause I can see you’ve got no class!”

The thing is that unless you want to wear them a little looser and become a Jew in Florida, throw them away. My father is constantly in search of what he calls “a good jogging suit” even though the man has never run a day in his life. God love him, he doesn’t look like Jay Z he looks like Morty, the head of the condo association. And when you wear those tight velour “suits” ladies you don’t look like a movie star you look like a worn out, fake Fendi purse carrying piece of white trash. I’m begging you, you’re now in your mid-forties and there’s no reason for you to be walking around in a hoodie, the other cheerleaders you cheered with and wore them with are dead, in prison or have moved on, why don’t you do the same?

Not every woman can be on TLC’s What Not To Wear so let’s help them out everybody, shall we? I want you to go into the closet of every woman you know and I want you to take those velour suits out to the trash where they belong. If they’re single women, tell them not wearing them will help them get a date. If they’re married women, tell them that they’re completely out of touch with what they should be wearing and what looks good on them and if they don’t get rid of the suit their husband will cheat on them. Make up any excuse you can think of, do whatever it takes but get rid of those worn, tired out, blown out outfits that make women look as though their ass is a Christmas card you kept from the seventies, you know, it was flocked and some of it has worn off? We have to get rid of all of them before you’re subjected as I was at looking at groceries and that not so pretty picture at the same time. Lose my appetite? Made me want to become one of the Olsen twins! Enough already with the velour jogging suits ladies – Don’t Get Me Started!

Will The REAL Gays Please Stand Up – Don’t Get Me Started!

Right now my mother just read the title to this blog and rolled her eyes. She is constantly telling me, “Does everything you write have to be about gay things? I think your other writing is just as funny and maybe it’ll reach a bigger audience. And don’t put this in the blog that I said this, okay?” However with the recent Evangelical leader scandal and Doogie Howser coming out, I can’t help but ask what they used to on What’s My Line, “Will the REAL gays please stand up?” – Don’t Get Me Started!

Is it me or are the supposed non-gays actually acting “gayer” than the gays at this point? I’m talking strictly from a stereotypical depiction of the gay community. I mean come on, the drugs, the masseuse (wink, wink) it’s everything the public at large think that gays are and how they behave. I say, how cliché of you Foley and Haggard can’t you even be somewhat original?

Now I get the whole, when you suppress a part of you that at some point you’re either going to revert to that part of yourself and accept it or you’re running the risk of being like a balloon that gets popped and goes whizzing around the room until it dies a sad death on the floor somewhere (usually behind a sofa).

But here’s the deal, I want to know if we as a gay community are supposed to be happy about the weekly adds to our roster? I’m not proud about and Mark Foley certainly does not represent me or anyone I know, neither does Ted Haggard (I’m proud to say). As far as the weekly actor outings I have to ask what’s behind that as well? I would like to think that the more this happens the less it will matter if you’re gay or not but I really don’t think that’s how it’s going to work. I think it’s going to be more blaming drugs, alcohol and other abuse to excuse the “righteous” from having “fallen” into the depths of homosexuality. They’ll go to rehab, cry on cue and their devout followers will either stay in a state of denial standing beside them (Mrs. Haggard perhaps it’s time to brush up on your best Hillary Clinton in a sex scandal crisis impersonation) or they’ll send them packing like they did to Jim Bakker from PTL Club in the eighties. As far as the actors go, they may find themselves a little less bankable in the future but as long as they stay on a decent series they’ll be just fine. They can always do independent films and be considered “artists” for doing so.

The problem is we’re not seeing viable everyday people coming out to help the cause, we’re seeing wackos and actors. Wackos will always be dismissed and the public doesn’t trust actors because they don’t know if they’re “acting” or not. We need Billy the mechanic to come out on the job and Rosalie the school nurse. Until we see people like that admitting that being gay ain’t so bad, I’m afraid our credibility for convincing straight people we’re just like them will remain elusive. When someone at work for example asks me if someone else we work with is gay, I always say, “I don’t know, let me check my membership list when I get home.” But any more there are too many to keep up!

We need to just get all these gay and supposed non-gays on a game show like the old What’s My Line. It’s perfect think about it, three “maybe” gays appear in each segment, the celebrity panel is like Rosie, Rupert Everett, Kathy Griffin and RuPaul. The host is Mario Lopez (of course – most likely not gay but someone most of the gay community would like to be gay and nice to look at for a half hour show as a host) and in each segment they ask questions trying to determine who out of the three contestants are gay. There’ll even be a celebrity segment so that Rupert Everett can put on the rhinestone mask. (Are you listening Ricky Martin? Great publicity for that new album coming out…) At the end of each segment the celebrities will try to guess who the gay is and Mario Lopez can say those classic words, “Will the real gays PLEASE stand up!” – Don’t Get Me Started!

I’m The One Who Raised Bitterness To An Art Form – Don’t Get Me Started!

Recently gay.com asked readers to write in dating advice for three scenarios as they were putting together a panel of five people to take on readers’ dating issues during the month of November. Now we all know that I’m not shy when it comes to telling it like it is or giving advice so I figured I had this one, easy. Imagine my discontentment when I went to the site today to see whom they chose and that I wasn’t one of them. I’m not going to tell you who they chose but whoever the fuck they are, I know I would have been better. Bitter? Bitter, you say? Oh yeah, I’m bitter but what most of the world has yet to understand is that I’m the one who raised bitterness to an art form – Don’t Get Me Started!

Okay, so here are the questions and my answers that I submitted:

1."I've been dating this guy for about two weeks and I really like him. We haven't had sex yet. He just told me he is HIV-positive. What should I do?"

a. Go ahead and dump him. Then you can spend the rest of your life not knowing if you dumped him for him or your inability to face your own demons. You like him, right? And you know what safe sex is, right? And although this may sound completely crazy, dating and sex aren’t synonymous. As someone who has been in a monogamous relationship for 18 years and was friends with his guy for several months before we figured out we were in love or had sex, building the relationship is a really fun part and gives you the most to laugh about years down the road. So like him for now and tell him your concerns when they come up. Who knows, maybe he won’t end up wanting you. Don’t think for one minute the fear you have about being with someone who is HIV-positive doesn’t go the other way. He may have fears about your inability to understand him. Ask yourself how he makes you feel? If he makes you feel great then you both deserve to continue dating to see where this goes and maybe eventually you’ll end up doing the safety dance!

2. "My boyfriend of eight years is trying to spice up our relationship, and I think that's great. Problem is, he's suggested going to a clothing-optional gay resort. How do I tell him this is just not my cup of tea without coming off as unadventurous?"

a. Okay, eight years and you can’t open your mouth? What the hell is wrong with you? I think you’re pretty adventurous to have lasted the eight years! As your mother would say, “If he told you to jump off a bridge, would you do that too?” For whatever reason you’re not comfortable with baring it all and guess what, you don’t have to be. Honestly, why is the “clothing optional” option the only one on the table? Trust me when I say there’s more than cinnamon in any self-respecting gay’s spice rack. What are your fantasies that have yet to be fulfilled? You also need to find out why your boyfriend wants to go to this kind of resort.  Does he want to ogle naked guys or does he want the freedom to walk around naked, ogle and possibly do more with naked guys? Communication here is a wonderful thing, you should try it. I don’t necessarily want to be involved with the running of the bulls but that hardly makes me less adventurous. After all, I have Christmas every year with my in-laws (who are African American) and I’m a Jew so that’s some pretty big spicy adventure!

3.  "My partner and I have been together a while, and everything's great with him. However, for some time I have been thinking seriously about becoming a sperm donor. I want to continue my line, and I wouldn't be involved in raising the child at all. So why is my partner so completely against the idea? Is my relationship more important than my legacy? Should I do it behind his back? Help!"

a. The whole, “do it behind his back” thing only works if he likes that position or you want to end up on Springer. You talk about continuing your “line” yet you want no responsibility for the child. It’s like shooting a gun in the air and then a mother comes to you twenty years later and says, “Remember when you shot that gun? You killed my son and destroyed our lives.” The idea of legacy doesn’t just include your genes (and the fact your family is prone to diabetes), it includes caring for, educating your child about your “line” and not waiting until the kid is twenty, has spent his/her life feeling abandoned then finds you hoping to “make up” for lost time. Ask yourself this question, “Without having a child what is YOUR legacy?” What do you intend to leave behind for future generations? Try spending some time talking to kids that were thrown out on the street for being gay and have no place to live. Your legacy may just be about helping people right now and not about filling a cup and waiting for the phone to ring from the Maury show twenty years from now. 

Fabulous, right? Now can you see exactly why I should have been asked to be on the panel? Not to mention I’ve always wanted to be Kitty Carlisle and those gay.com people have taken my chance away! 

Oh, I’m sorry it IS about dating advice and I guess because I’m one of the six gays in North America in a solid and monogamous relationship, I just don’t qualify as someone who would know anything about dating. I’m sorry I can’t tell you how to slip your underwear on and slip out of the door when you wake up with someone you don’t even remember from the night before at his house. I really am out of the loop when it comes to giving advice about what to do if you think you’re ready to settle down and your boyfriend brings home six guys from a settlement house to have sex with you. 

Bitter? It’s more energizing than going to the gym or taking a cold shower. I’m over them now and I don’t even care, really. (See this is step two, the bitter grapes phase) And listen to me good, should you people at gay.com be reading, I feel like the fat black girl from Fame when Leroy gets in the school and she doesn’t (to paraphrase), “Fuck you gay.com, I didn’t want to be on your ass licking panel anyway! You’re looking at one happy bitch! Fuck you gay.com!” Oh yeah, I’m the one who raised bitterness to an art form – Don’t Get Me Started!

And should you want advice on dating or any other topic the “doctor” is now in…check out http://www.somelikeitscott.com/someliketherapy.html

I’m Dying…Or I’m A Hypochondriac! – Don’t Get Me Started!

As shocking as this will be for all of you, I never played sports, broke any bones (other than a baby toe in a production of Oklahoma because this guy would step on my foot every night in one of the numbers and we were wearing cowboy boots) and I’ve never been in the hospital except to visit. (I’m a fabulous hospital sitter!) Having been a dancer for years, one gets used to pain and “pushing past it” or so I thought. You see, for years I’ve been under the impression that I had a high threshold for pain and was one of those people that just said, “By gum, I don’t care that my leg is hanging off, I can still do the big number.” But recently I’ve discovered something really horrifying, and that is that I’m a wuss. The minute that I have the least discomfort I’m sure I’m dying. The thing is that I didn’t realize this until this week when I was on the phone with my friend Betsy. So, I’m convinced. I’m dying…or I’m a hypochondriac – Don’t Get Me Started!

I’ve always said that the worst person is a person that thinks he’s a people person but really isn’t one at all. I had a boss I used to work for who was fond of saying, “You’re so lucky you get to work for me. Everyone loves me.” Thing was, no one loved him and many thought he was a real asshole, mainly because he was a real asshole. But I was always astonished at just how wrong he was and I wondered how he convinced himself everyday that he was so beloved when he was so not. Maybe I should have admired him for creating a fantasy and making himself believe it but then again I might as well admire Jessica Simpson for her acting.

I keep telling myself that I’m really not a wuss that I’m one of the people who can persevere through any kind of pain. And yet when I review my life, it becomes harder and harder to keep the illusion alive that I’m one of the tough ones. (stop snickering, please) Sure a muscle pull here and there is easy enough to overcome but there have been moments when I was sure I was dying too.

I recently went to the doctor and found out that I have high cholesterol – lest you think all of my writing is going to become some sort of sad advertisement for Geritol and I’m going to be lamenting “my little body slowly breaking down” Evita - I’m trying to make a point here. Immediately, my head started racing, “How could I have high cholesterol? Though my body shows little to no signs of it, I do work out at least three times a week. High cholesterol? How could this happen to me?” My dear friend informed me that the new “high” number for cholesterol is really not the real high number at all and it’s just a conspiracy by drug companies and doctors to get us hooked on “the pills” like Neely in Valley of the Dolls. I don’t know about that but by the time I’d gotten home from the doctor I had high blood pressure too and was sure that the weakness in my left arm was soon to be a heart attack. With no one home but the cats, who would find me? Yes, I’m completely ashamed to say I went as far as to think of the cats laying on me, meowing over my lifeless body. They were going to be like Julia Roberts’ small child in Steel Magnolias. Oh shut up, of course I know high cholesterol and diabetic comas are two different things but I’m a little dramatic, can you believe?

And that’s when it hit me, I have no high threshold for pain, in fact, I have no threshold for pain at all. But just because someone puts a number on a piece of paper, it doesn’t mean I’m dying…at least I don’t think I am, maybe I am. I’m dying… or I’m a hypochondriac – Don’t Get Me Started!

Read the first Don't Get Me Started Blog @ People With THE FISH On Their Car - Don't Get Me Started!

We Are A “Family?” – Don’t Get Me Started! 

So today I’m talking to the general manager at our Vegas location regarding creating a family night at the place. We’re going on and on about it, then the subject moved on and we discussed a night to attract local gays, so we talked about that and the different promotions we could do. I was giving what I thought was great insight into both topics and then we returned to the family night talk, I had our creative director email me the poster they had made for the promotion they were doing in a few of our other locations. I printed it out and handed it to the general manager and his eyes got as big as saucers. “We can’t use this artwork, it has kids on it!” So I said, “Of course, it’s a family night.” Then with a look that said, Mark Foley is sitting in this office, he looked at me and somewhat stammering said, “Not that gays don’t have families too but one of my managers who suggested creating this night said that’s what gays call these kinds of nights, family night.” Finally it hit me that all this time we were not talking about two different nights we were talking about the same night! This kid manager had told the general manager that “we” use that term for specialty nights at establishments. Now as you all know I walk a very fine line every day regarding being thrown out of the gay membership. But today threw me for a loop. Now I remember people in the 1980’s, before gaydar, before Will and Grace, asking one another if someone was “family” (this was a euphemism for someone being gay) but I haven’t heard that expression in a lot of years. I sat there stunned and feeling weird. Do people really still use that phrase? We are a “family?” – Don’t Get Me Started!

The kid manager who is gay and suggested this night and its title is in his twenties. I don’t understand why this term, used in this way, is even around anymore. To me it’s like whispering when you say, “cancer” or something. In this day and age almost everyone has been touched by or knows someone with cancer…no need for the whispering. The same goes for gays. As my grandmother used to say about gays, “they’re everywhere”. (Including the ones on the “down low” thank you Oprah for telling us about this!). I know there are people who are not out but much like the gender fucking that goes on with the “she did not just say that to me” when two men are talking, I don’t get it. Why perpetuate stereotypes or the use of what I call, “wink, wink, nudge, nudge” phrases? Haven’t we progressed beyond this type of behavior? 

I didn’t have to walk ten miles uphill everyday in the snow to go to school but I do know that although there was and is harassment in schools and beyond, I also know that there are school campuses that have straight-gay alliances now, something that would never have been going on in the 80’s when we were trying to get our hair as big as Duran Duran and Flock of Seagulls. I know that most people have heard of and have watched television, which includes more and more gay people on it (whether stereotypically portrayed or not). There are so many opportunities that are out there for the youth and the adult gays of today that just weren’t around in the 80’s or even 90’s that I think we owe it to ourselves and our community to just say what we mean.

I’m a man, don’t call me “girl” or “sister” and while I am a member of the gay community I don’t consider all of them my family just because they’re gay. It’s like a friend of mine’s father who when he found out I was Jewish asked if I knew someone he knew because they were Jewish too.

I get that some people are thrown out of their family for being gay and the community becomes their family. I think that’s great but that’s not what I’m talking about here. I’m asking people to realize that in this day and age it’s okay to say the word gay. It may not be appropriate to burst out asking if someone is gay in the middle of a crowded room but I say that if we truly seek acceptance it has to start with us first. We can’t be afraid to talk to one another and say what we mean, the world’s skills at communication are getting worse and worse as we rely on emails and any other source of communicating without talking to one another or having to actually see one another. Right now for those of you who have never heard my voice, you don’t know if I’m being sarcastic, passionate or sincere. You’re interpreting my words for yourself and it may not be what I mean at all.

Okay, some of you are saying I’m going on about nothing but to me being gay is a part of me, not all of me and I’m not afraid or ashamed of it. So while some of my best friends are gay there are a lot or gays who are not my friends or that I even know. We don’t all know one another and we don’t all share the exact same experience, similar maybe but we are not all related. We are similar in some ways and very different in other ways. We are a “family?” – Don’t Get Me Started!

I Was Scared Straight (well, almost) A Halloween Story – Don’t Get Me Started!

I heard from a lot of people today regarding my lack of enthusiasm for Halloween. I heard that I was a “bah humbugger” I was told that I wasn’t “festive” and once again my gayness is under great scrutiny by the board of all things gay and gay related. All because I have no desire to dress up and join the collective, to assimilate, to become a part of the gay Borg (Star Trek reference warning). Is it my fault I’d rather email with ex-congressman Foley than dress up like Oprah? I was scared straight (well, almost) a Halloween story – Don’t Get Me Started!

Here’s the thing, I was all prepared to stay home and hand out candy. Much to the chagrin of friends I wasn’t “dressing up” to stay home and pass out candy. I thought that the passing out of the candy was a “get out of costume free” card but apparently once again, I was ill informed. As I wrote previously, my collection of candy was totally kick ass. I had the Reeces Peanut Butter cups, the Junior Mints, the M&Ms (plain and peanut) and just in case, an extra bag of Snickers. I ate dinner early in preparation for the coming of the children. And so the waiting began…and continued...and continued some more until 8pm. As Fiyero (my cat) jumped from my lap to hide away somewhere in the bedroom, I knew this was the start of the night of the trick or treaters.

Before they knocked on the door, I had gotten up and had the enormous bowl (given to us by a friend, one of kind handmade in Africa) filled to the brim with the candy. As I opened the door I heard a very weak, “trick or treat” and I began handing out the candy. One of them couldn’t believe the selection saying, “Wow, how cool!” and I just kind of smiled inside knowing I really had made all the right choices. They were four twelve-year-old boys. One had a somewhat costume on, I guess, I mean he had a mask pushed up on the top of his head like Hal Prince’s glasses, another one had a wide striped sweater on, only after great thought (hours later) did I think, “Hmmmm…the Nightmare On Elm Street guy?” The third had black pants and a black shirt that had a picture of something orange on it that I could only assume was a pumpkin and the fourth just appeared to be in normal clothes. And so it would come to pass that this was the start and the end of my trick or treaters.

As I sat and allowed myself to eat a few of the treats I had to wonder if all my Halloween Hum Buggery as it were was the reason I had no revelers at my door. Could my mental state have created this reality?

So maybe next year I’ll do something I haven’t done in years and dress up. As what I don’t know but sometimes it’s good to sing the tune everyone else is singing isn’t it? Plus the board of all things gay and gay related would like it and we all know you don’t want to piss off “the gays”. Meanwhile if I don’t get this candy out of the house I’ll have to go as Carnie Wilson pre-surgery and again post-baby. But as Scarlett said, “I couldn’t possibly think about that today. I’ll think about it tomorrow. Fiddle dee dee.” I was scared straight (well, almost) a Halloween story – Don’t Get Me Started!