So in writing yesterday’s blog entry I discovered that I say, “but that’s a blog for another day” way too much because I don’t ever end up writing “those” blogs that I’m supposedly waiting to write for a rainy (or should I say creatively dry) day. Well the reference in yesterday’s blog (The G-A-A-A-Y Triple Threat ) was about the sometimes scary people (okay let’s just say it, men) that I seem to attract when out in public. Now here’s the big new flash, I do not feel that I am a looker in any stretch of the imagination. In my younger days I think I could have been considered, “cute” but my possible boy toy days are now most certainly behind me (the only way I could hope to be a boy toy now would be to find someone approximately 85 years old, I think it goes up five years for every year you put on so I’ll be having to look for someone in their 90’s before the end of the year). And before I go any further, please know that I am in no way implying that I have a lot of men who what I call, “hubba hubba” me on any kind of regular basis. No, I’m not one of the hit upon in life but in those rare moments when it does happen, it’s always the same type. Why is it the men that want me I don’t want at all? – Don’t Get Me Started!

For those of you who have read any of my blogs or the Prologue page on this site, you know that I have been very fortunate that I have had the same six foot black man in my life for over 18 years now. We’re in a completely monogamous relationship so believe me when I say I’m not looking but every once in awhile it seems that a man is looking at me and when he is, it’s never pretty. Now whether you’re in a relationship of not, I don’t care what anyone says, it’s nice to have someone “show some interest” in you if only to let you know that the time you spent showering, shaving and clothing yourself that day paid off a little.

And so it would come to pass that I was in line at Trader Joe’s (my favorite trendy grocery store) and I was waiting in line to pay. Now this gal who works there that I’ve grown to know over the years (a sassy red haired lesbian that always chastises me for not going out to the latest drag show or gayer than gay event). She started yelling at me for not noticing her recent haircut. So we had a pretty good homosexual banter going back and forth when suddenly I feel like someone is staring at me. Well, there he was, right in front of me in line in all his glory. He had to be in his mid to late sixties (but his hair was about two weeks old and as dark as black shoe polish) and he was wearing one of those jogging suits that make that crinkly noise every time you take a breath. Now from the look of him, the suit was really about the fashion he thought he was sporting because he had a gut the size of a ten month pregnant woman and gave the appearance of never having worked out a day in his life. He had on these large black rectangular framed glasses that made him look as though he was trying to look like Karl Lagerfeld (unsuccessfully, I might add). Meanwhile, he was doing something that just repulses me, he had opened one of the items he was about to purchase and was eating in line. At closer examination, I discovered that they were in fact one of those, “100 calorie” packs of crackers or something. Who was this fatty boomba latty kidding? There was no way he was going to be sated by one package of these things.

I don’t know if he was trying to tempt me with the way he was eating the 20 calories in his hand or what, but here’s a tip for you older men, don’t try to be all sexy in a grocery store line with a low calorie cracker. You’re no Kim Basinger in 9 ½ weeks. But there he was doing the whole look you up and down and all around thing and I felt like I couldn’t get out of there fast enough or scrub myself down enough (think Meryl Streep in Silkwood).

As I was telling one of my pals, I think most guys get hit on by other guys that are similar to their age or even their type but when it comes to me, I always get the older guys with little or over-styled hair wearing the big Sally Jesse glasses that open the conversation with the word, “Say…” with twenty “S’s” in it. Oh dear God, it just occurred to me, is that what I am? Is that how I appear to others and that’s why I’m attracting that type? Say (with one “S”) it isn’t so. The one thing I do know is that this is why I could never be single again. Thank God, there was someone looking out for me when they made my guy interested in me but I have to wonder, why is it the men that want me I don’t want at all? – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Back at the beginning of time when I thought I had a chance at a career in what we call, “the show business” we used the term “triple threat” for someone who could sing, act and dance – proficient and excellent in each area. But now that I’ve become the greatest never was been there ever was, I find myself using this term to describe another phenomenon. Now I’ve said it before; that I am more than thankful for the fact that I have been with the same handsome man for over eighteen years and that I don’t have to be out there living the single gay life. Frankly, my boa is off to the boys who are out there day in and day out looking for that special someone. Now just because I’m not looking doesn’t mean I don’t look and that I don’t want people to look in my direction (sometimes with scary results on the people I tend to attract – a blog for another day) but what I’ve discovered is that there are basically two categories for gays. They are either the too too thin gays (similar to the weight of one Girl Scout Thin Mint cookie) or they are these big built up muscle guys who seem to be interested in perfecting their G-A-A-A-Y Triple Threat, arms, ass and abs – Don’t Get Me Started!

The problem with most of the gays (and straight men too) who are trying to achieve their G-A-A-A-Y perfection is that they really focus on their arms and their ass (occasionally they also obsess over their calves, I even saw a Discovery show once about a guy who had implants put in his calves – ugh) and yet somehow the natural phenomenon occurs that while their abs are well defined they are basically big guts with the shading of a six pack like a stenciled frosting on the top of a cake. These guys strut around with their bodies that are so tan they look as though they’ve created a whole new race of people (they don’t quite look black but they are so brown and you can see that there is a white person in there somewhere when you look around the eyes but then again, maybe they’re just from Tanzania or something – a land where everyone is oddly and artificially tan, in my mind anyway). Their arms are as big as a normal person’s thigh (or bigger) and yet with the tan and everything their guts are sticking out looking like a lobster tail from a Red Lobster commercial. Sort of all sticking out and you can see there’s definition but it’s just overflowing, covered in butter (or in the boys case, oil) and yet it’s not appetizing in the least.
 

For some reason, having big arms seems to be a get out of having a flat stomach for free card. I don’t get it. Are we supposed to be so dazzled and in awe with your arms that we don’t notice that big, hard (wait for it) gut? Well, we do and in talking with some people, apparently the way the muscle gut is achieved is that when you’re working out, lifting weights, you should be sucking your stomach in (You know, like Tyra does for an hour each week on Top Model) but these guys are lifting such huge weights to get the big arms that they are actually pushing out their stomachs instead of sucking in. And by pushing out the stomach, they’re training it to be a muscle gut. Sure it has all the markings of a six pack but it also sticks out about eighteen inches from where it should.

I know that gays come in many varieties and that we should just be thankful we gays do not have to walk around with pink triangles on (Thank you Mr. Hitler) but it does get to me that when these guys “bulk” up they seem to lose all perspective on what is hot and what is not. True, this is a bit open to your own turn ons and offs but come on, how many times have you seen a guy from the back that has a great ass and arms and they turn around and suddenly you think you’re seeing Barbra Streisand doing the pregnant bit in “His Love Makes Me Beautiful” from Funny Girl?
 

I think it’s great that you’re all achieving something that I will never be able to achieve and for once I can honestly say that I’m not bitter. I think the word is more hopeless. I will never be either gay thin or have a body builder body that stops traffic but hopefully at some point from all this working out I will have a toned and half way decent body that I can begin to look at again. (I have the tendency when I’m feeling a little fatter to never look at anything below the neck in the mirror – I could be completely gangrene from the sternum down and have no idea). That being said, I aspire to be a triple threat if only so I can keep my gay membership in good standing. So here’s to trying and remembering to suck it in as often as possible. The G-A-A-A-Y Triple Threat, arms, ass and abs – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Gentlemen, Put Your Damn Socks On – Don’t Get Me Started!

I know this is not a new thing but it just makes me so freaking crazy that I felt it was time for a good old, Don’t Get Me Started about men who wear dress pants and dress shoes yet don’t wear any socks. I truly believe this is one of the nastiest things in the universe (and probably the whole reason we have to watch those commercials with the cartoon character “Digger” the toenail fungus mascot). Here’s the deal, you are NOT Clark Gable who when he took his shirt off in the movie, It Happened One Night and the public discovered her didn’t wear a t-shirt sent the undershirt business to a crashing halt almost immediately. Men wanted to be like him and women wanted their men to be like him so everyone stopped wearing undershirts. Well, for those who choose to not wear socks with their suits, I say, guess what? You’re not Clark Gable, not even close so gentlemen, put your damn socks on – Don’t Get Me Started!

Last week on the show Top Design on Bravo, not only did the fussiest designer in the world (and I’m being polite for once with that comment), Jonathan Adler not have socks on but also, guest judge, Tom Colicchio from Top Chef didn’t have them on either. Every time they would cross their legs sitting on the stools in the judging room and I would see those bare ankles, I’d get more and more disgusted. So here’s the deal, I can ALMOST forgive the overweight (Are you listening Mr. Colicchio?) as it seems to me that they could get a heart attack trying to get their leg up to get their socks on. You know these men, the ones who wear the loafers that are so worn down in the back from trying to wriggle their fat little feet into the shoe without a shoe horn. To these men I say, lose weight, put your socks on and get rid of any shoe that slips on and has a tassel (unless of course you’re a court jester and they’re very pointy). But I can almost forgive you for this sin due to the health peril it would put you in trying to hold in your breath and swing that leg up to get the sock on. But when it comes to the Queer Eye’s Carson, or Jonathan Adler no sympathy here boys, put some socks on.

We have a relative who has done this for years and he actually accompanies the sockless shoe look with the horrific duck embroidered pants. I credit this fashion faux pas to the South. It seems to be that all those white, white, whiter than white people who go to the country club were looking for a way to make their wardrobe more whimsical and this is what they came up with as their big fashion trend. No socks and embroidered chino cloth on the bottom (oh yes, they make them in skirts for women and pants for men.) Although our relative thought that he was looking like the country club smart set, we all knew he was a good ol’ Jew like the rest of us and that no matter how many ducks, geese and hunting dogs he had embroidered on his pants or how many loafers he wore without socks, he was never going to be truly accepted.

And why do we accept this whole no sock thing? I don’t know but no pun intended, someone needs to put their foot down and I’m just the boy to do it. Can you even imagine how smelly these men’s Kenneth Coles and Cole Haans must be at the end of the day? There aren’t enough odor eaters in North America up to that challenge. And more than the hygienic reasons, let’s face it, no matter how they try to make us think that it looks hip or cool, it’s really just stupid looking. It looks like you were running out of the house and forgot to put socks on.

No, I have no interest (or stock) in the sock business but I feel for them because we’re so susceptible to fashion trends, forsaking common sense and comfort for the latest and/or greatest (supposed) look. I say; take your feet back from the designers and southern men who are trying to get you to really stink up your shoes and look stupid. Call me old fashioned but socks are just a must in my book (the exception being when you’re wearing sandals and if you ARE going to wear sandals for God sakes, at least trim your toe nails and have the sense to lotion up those crusty dusty heels, please). Let’s face it, other than the say six million people who have a foot fetish, the rest of us pretty much just use them to get around and although we’re not foot models, we should try to keep them as nice as possible when they are in sandals or flip flops. Otherwise, put those potatoes in their sacks before you put your shoes on. Gentlemen, put your damn socks on – Don’t Get Me Started!

So I managed to make it through Girl Scout cookie season without letting the little bitches in front of the market tempt me into actually making a purchase. This is very difficult as I do feel as though the Girl Scout Thin Mint cookie is perhaps the most perfect cookie in the world, what with its thinness, chocolate and minty goodness all in one cookie I go crazy for it. Don’t get me wrong, I did manage to eat an entire “sleeve” of these cookies at my parent’s house (as my mother knows that I love them and had them at her house – yet another reason everyone should have a Jewish mother). If they were in my house I’d eat so many that my shit would end up looking like the chocolate cookie itself (yes, I speak from experience having practically OD’ed on the cookies before, I know it’s not pretty and I have no idea why I’m sharing this but if you eat enough of them in one sitting…well, let’s just say it isn’t very pretty). But today when I went to the market the Boy Scouts were out in front. I don’t even know what the Boy Scouts were selling but I’m not buying – Don’t Get Me Started!

So just for a moment, let’s take out of the equation the fact that the Boy Scouts have thrown the gays out on their ass, that I myself was thrown out of Scouts for an unhomosexual reason when I was a boy (read the vintage Don’t Get Me Started by clicking here - Scout-O-Rama!) and the fact that have you ever seen when they show the boys who have made it all the way to Eagle Scout in the paper – they’re either gayer than gay or have a future of never have sex with anyone that they didn’t pay to have it with (some overachieving Eagles land in both those categories at once, God love them). But all that aside, I do feel the boys deserve equal time selling and before you all start sending me hate-mails, I’m sure that somewhere Scouting has done some boys a lot of good somewhere (even though it certainly wasn’t the case in my case – again, read the vintage Scout blog).

Here’s the deal, the boys had what we used to call a “card table” (you know those rickety portable square tables that will go down in a minute with all the deviled eggs on them if you don’t extend the legs all the way) with like four sheets of paper that had printing on them. Whatever they were selling (and honestly, I don’t know if it’s the uniforms or what but I did a quick sprint right past them saying, “no thank you” before the runny nosed blue shirt wearing, son of a den mother could tell me what they were selling) I got the impression that it was more about something you had to order and then pick up weeks later.

Now if the Scouts ever needed homos in the organization, it is now. At least to let them know that they have it all wrong when it comes to sales. As I’ve said before, if you want great guest service you gotta get a gay. We’re absolutely the best when it comes to sales. From clothes to windshield replacement (as I found out recently) we gays are pretty tough to beat in the selling and servicing department (just ask all the boys on Santa Monica Blvd in LA who sell themselves daily and nightly). The whole whatever it was they were selling was all wrong from minute one.

Here are my five quick suggestions for the Scouts on the selling of the products. 1) Get a better table and for God sakes get even a plastic table cloth to make it look a little nicer 2) Sell something that you can take home right then, an impulse buy if you will 3) Go ahead and learn from the Girl Scouts, we’re a country of obese, fast food, crap eating citizens, sell something that will practically sell itself, especially in front of a grocery store – think food items 4) Whatever you’re selling, have an example of it right there so even if you’re going to stick with ordering stuff off of a paper and pissing people off that they have to come back to get it at least they can see what the hell it is you’re selling and it’s not just on some printed eight and a half by eleven paper with a picture on it 5) Put the gays in front. Although we’re not allowed to be Scout Masters, you know that much like the military there are plenty gays (or as we say in the homo code language, future salespeople for Nordstrom) among you. Gays just sell and give better service so play to those strengths and let the “boys” do the selling.

I don’t know what the future of Scouting holds but I hope they weren’t hanging their future on the sales (or lack there of) that I saw at the grocery store. I mean, as last week showed us, they can’t even teach them how to find their way out of the woods (which excuse me, isn’t that one of the big things that the Scouting hangs its hat on, teaching hiking, camping and reading a compass?) at this point if they can’t even do that how do they expect to run a good sales effort? I don’t even know what the Boy Scouts were selling but I’m not buying – Don’t Get Me Started!

Well last night was the big Miss USA pageant 2007 and who really cared? Even me, a professed guilty pleasure pageant loving homosexual left my house before the pageant was done and didn’t even Tivo it. Does that give you any indication about how even I don’t get what Miss USA does or why we need one at all? I guess that Mr. Trump would have us believe that Miss USA represents us as a country but as I’ve lamented before about this pageant, the Miss USA pageant has nothing on the Miss America pageant and never will, no matter how much money he dumps into it. So I have to ask Mr. Trump and the girls in the pageant to tell me again why we need a Miss USA? – Don’t Get Me Started!

The one thing you find out right away about Miss USA is that while Miss America seems like an 18 hour bra commercial (non-sexual and so large that there’s no chance of you ever seeing a nipple) the Miss USA pageant is a Victoria Secret meets Fredrick’s of Hollywood affair. Exactly, Miss America’s are for marrying and Miss USA’s are for screwing in a bathroom at a fraternity house after they’ve spent too much time on the beer bong.

Kudos for a well produced and coordinated show but even from the introductions, there was a need for some help with the direction and choreography. The girls did their intros themselves and as we know these gals aren’t the smartest in the world so it’s a little like asking them to chew gum and walk at the same time. They can’t do the put the foot behind you and spin around until you almost fall over and then walk out of it (an apparent classic move as they did this through all of what I saw for every part of the competition) and introduce themselves in the odd way that they were directed both at the same time. They would say their name then they would mention their city with the same emphasis as their name and then they would walk and do the classic almost falling over turn and then say their state so you kind of didn’t know if their city was an additional last name or what? It sounded like, Magen (yes, that’s how one girl’s parents actually spelled it – welcome to illiterate America) Muldoon Ft. Wayne….Indiana. It also looked as though these intros were pre-recorded before the audience came in (I’m sure so that nothing would throw them off) and then they would cut to the live show where the six or seven girls in each category would pose in their coordinating outfits.

A pregnant Nancy O’Dell and some guy who was awful (but he has an Australian accent and as we know, that’s all it takes to be a host on an American TV show these days, an accent) did the perfunctory bad dialogue (who writes these shows anyway and do they think they’re good?) and did their best (which wasn’t all that great). The male host, I think his name was Tim, would say something (usually about being around so many hot looking chicks when we all know the only way he’d be taking one of those gowns off those girls was if he was hemming it) and then make the classic goofy host face while Nancy would give us the next piece of information.

But the real “main event” was seeing the outgoing Miss USA, Tara (I need rehab too) Conner and what she would say about her indiscretions that almost had her drugged up, slutty ass out on the street before she could give the tiara up at the pageant this year. If the eyes are the windows to the soul, then her hair dresser knew what he was doing by giving her the most annoying bangs in recorded history that covered her soul-less eyes. And I’m not talking in a sexy, one eyed look like Veronica Lake. No, I’m talking in a Prince Valiant, straight across, fried out blonde, Sam you made the bangs too long kind of look. Her false eye lashes were fighting to get through the bang like a car through those huge brushes in a car wash. She didn’t mention drugs or rehab really, just that she was glad she could “feel” what was going on tonight as opposed to repressing her feelings as she had done for so long in her life. As if we care, right? Get to the good stuff sister and do a little asking of forgiveness to at least give the illusion you weren’t just bouncing on The Donald’s lap in order to keep your tiara a few months ago.  

They kept going to the backstage for footage of the pageant as it was happening and as an actor, I can tell you that the backstage can be really exciting but not in this case on any of the times they went back there with their cameras as they were going to the commercial breaks. To be honest, the pageant was dull and that’s why I had no trouble leaving it. The girls would come out and then they would show the judges score on the screen for that part of the competition. The finalists were all getting 8.something or other scores except for Miss Tennessee who was getting 9’s all the time so there was no surprise when I Googled today to get the results and found out that she had won.

I’m sure that there are some die hard fans of this pageant (though I don’t have any idea why as there’s not even a talent portion – hello) but for my homoney, I’ll stick to the Miss America gang. At least with Miss America you know that they have those platforms where they actually try to do something to help society as opposed to Miss USA that flashed up “hairstyling” on the screen as one of the girl’s “interests” as she walked in her bikini and did the almost falling down turn once again. Tell me again why we need a Miss USA? – Don’t Get Me Started!

Read more Some Like It Scott blogs about pageants by clicking the links below:

Miss U.S.Alright Already

Pageant School: Becoming Miss America

Miss America's closet

Miss America Judges Get It Wrong

I admit that I’m a little late in the week for this topic but as I have had something called life happening at a fast and furious pace this week, I haven’t been able to even get near my Tivo to catch up on all my shows. Last night I finally sat down with remote in hand to catch up on the two hour shows, Dancing With The Stars and Idol. But today, let’s talk about Dancing With The Duds – the new season of Dancing With The Stars – Don’t Get Me Started!

I have watched this show from the first season and I have really loved it but I always had someone I was rooting for or at least was thinking would be interesting to watch from the first episode. After watching the first show of this season I have to say that there’s no one I really even care that much about and that’s not a good thing.

It seems as if this season’s “stars” have slipped to a new all time low making it just barely squeak by The Surreal Life for  the “Most likely to have celebrities we can’t place and don’t care about” award. There’s no John Hurley or Springer as the older statesman this year and while you’ve got Apolo, Ian and Joey from N*Sync, the show certainly isn’t the Boy Toy Ballroom it was last season with Mario and Joey. Come on, we all know that ballrooms were made by and for the gays so at least give us a little eye candy please. (And no, we don’t want to have to wait for Fatone to slim down during the course of the show.)

Every season these reality shows seem to get “watered” down a little bit more and such is the case with this season of this show. You can feel it all ready; the show has lost its edge by getting too polished in some areas and not enough in other areas. All ready they only gave the celebs four weeks to get ready instead of six so they all look shakier than they have on any other season opener. What the producers need to remember is that we want the stars to seem half way decent so that we’re not stuck doing what we do at the election polls every four years (begrudgingly rooting for the lesser of the evils). As shaky as the “stars” are, the judges are starting to sound too scripted and are being way too nice (even for the first episode). Bruno is a cartoon of himself, trying desperately to spit out his scripted (but supposedly spontaneous) comments, Len is looking more and more like Fred Astaire (not in a good way – and what was that blushing moment he had over Clyde Drexler?) while Carrie Ann’s comments are getting as useless as Paula’s on Idol, “You look really good.”

Meanwhile can someone please explain to me why they have the worst singers in recorded history on this show? I know that we’re not supposed to be focused on the singers but how can we not be focused on them when they sound so bad? At this point I think we’d all prefer to have someone just DJ the show. I love the idea of the band and they’re great but the singers are one notch above the famous Kathy Lee on the vintage game show, Name That Tune where she would sing a song but, “la, la, la” its title. I say bring in a DJ, maybe it’ll seem edgier to have someone spinning instead of listening to bad karaoke singers kill our favorite songs.

And then there are the hosts of the show. While Tom Bergeron is his usual lovable self, Samantha Harris continues to sound like she just came from a vocal coach that is teaching her how to make her voice lower. Harris sounds like she’s rehearsed every line at least a dozen times in front of a mirror, trying to make her voice sound lower and richer yet for some reason she still trips all over herself in whatever she tries to say. We haven’t seen it yet this season but I loved watching Tom Bergeron watch her last season when she would biff a line or just do her whole, “listen to my round, deep tones” voice. Bergeron does not have a poker face and you can tell he’s like, “Geez, how did I get stuck with this chic? She sucks.” Watch him people, trust me, I’m sure there will be plenty of these moments again this season.

Finally, I just have to say that if you want me to invest two hours a week (either on the same night or a dance night and then a results show) you have to give me something that is enjoyable to watch or at least pretty. We need more than the sequins on the gowns to sparkle here and more importantly we have to know who the hell the supposed stars are or what they’ve done.

Although I have no connections with the psychic world, I’m going to go ahead and make one prediction. Fake leg or not, I think America can’t wait to vote off Heather Mills who was mean to our beloved Paul McCartney. I get it, she’s famous for being with someone famous and has a fake leg but I don’t think America is going to let her continue to drag that leg around the floor for long.

I’ll continue to watch and to hope that the so-called “stars” get better but with Maksim’s haircut making him look fat (and is he putting on weight or is it just part of the choreography to pull your vest down?) the new kid, Brian Fortuna who managed to get on my nerves within the first five seconds and the new inexperienced blonde bimbo they put with Apolo even some of the pros are a bit shaky. Thank God we still have Cheryl, Tony and Edyta! Dancing With The Duds – the new season of Dancing With The Stars – Don’t Get Me Started!

Phil Spector, Killer Or Just A Victim Of Bad Hair? – Don’t Get Me Started!

Before


Today

(Sung to the tune of “Dear Mr. Gable”) Dear Mr. Spector, I am writing this to you and I hope that you will read it, so you’ll know. My heart beats like a hammer and I stuttered and I stammer every time I see the hairstyle you chose. I guess I’m just another fan of yours and I thought I’d write and tell you so oh, oh oh. Enough. I don’t know if he killed someone or not but I do know that whoever has been doing the hair of this music legend needs to be shot. Phil Spector, killer or just a victim of bad hair? – Don’t Get Me Started!

For those of you who have no idea who Spector is (other than a freaky looking defendant) he created the unique Wall of Sound with his 60’s girl groups. He was truly a genius (and a Jew) – I know you’re thinking that Einstein was the only Jewish genius (kind of fun to say) but there have been many and Phil Spector was one of them in his time. Unfortunately, now it’s all about the murder that took place in his house. While some would focus on the murder, I prefer to discuss the real issue, his hair.

I too have been the victim of hair don’ts through the years (look no further than to the right side of this page). And to his defense, when you’re trapped in that chair getting your hair done, the person with the scissors just seems to make so much sense. It’s like buying jewelry in a store, always take it outside into the light of reality before purchasing (even if you have to do so with the salesperson attached to your hip) because they know exactly how to light those places to make things look better than they truly are in reality. The same can be said for some hairstylists, while they’re cutting away, chatting about their bad relationship (if you know what’s good for you, you will engage in as little conversation as possible because the more they talk, the more they cut) and spin you around in the mirror, things can look half way decent. That is until you get out into the light of day.

One of my worst experiences was a perm. Now several “stylists” have talked me into perms through the years. What can I say? I was foolish, I was young, and while I had poker straight and thin hair my brother’s was what I thought I wanted, the complete opposite, thick and curly. You always want in life what you can’t have and for some reason you think that that although you can’t have the perfect mate, car, or anything else in your life, a stylist can make what you think you should have a reality. What you don’t realize is that there’s a reason you shouldn’t have what you think you should have in some cases. Hairstyles are definitely one of them. Well, I got the perm that was (according to the stylist) supposed to give me volume and make my hair so much thicker looking. Instead I looked like Harpo Marx. Because the bitch had left the solution on too long, my hair color had lightened about three shades from dark brown to a dirty blonde and because my hair was so thin, you could actually see where she had rolled the rods up. I looked like a human Q-tip with track marks in his head. (See Spector “before” picture, think me at thirteen). I remember going to meet my father and brother for dinner after the perm. As my mother and I sat down at the table in the restaurant I remember looking across the table to see my brother desperately trying not to laugh and my father calculating how long this “phase” would last. (Thank God for all parties concerned this “phase” did not last long at all. I can’t say the same for some others.)

The thing is that when you sit in a stylist’s chair they can talk you into all sorts of things so Phil I want to say that I feel your pain but Dear Mr. Spector you’ve gone to the other end of the spectrum now and someone needs to defend you from your stylist, yourself or maybe both of you. Whoever is doing your hair has taken you from that permed, palmed out huge do to the 1977 Dorothy Hamill. This “new” style will not make you seem more normal to the jury, in fact, I’m afraid it’s going to make you seem all the nuttier. (From the musical Mame when the characters Mame and Vera are singing the song, “Bosom Buddies” Vera: Though now and again I’m aware that my candid opinion may sting. Mame: Though often my frank observation might scald; I’ve been meaning to tell you for years, you should keep your hair natural like mine. Vera: If I kept my hair natural like yours, I’d be bald!) I too have made bad hair mistakes but your life really depends on it this time so get rid of the John Denver blonde do and go for something more natural like mine (see headshot on homepage www.somelikeitscott.com). Because as my mother always says, they’ll forgive you anything if you have a strong finish and at the moment, you need someone who knows how to finish that hair of yours! Phil Spector, killer or just a victim of bad hair? – Don’t Get Me Started!

For those of us who can’t shave our heads and poke at people with umbrellas, die of drug overdoses leaving father-full children behind, what exactly are we supposed to do when our mid-life crisis hits? I’m not sure that it’s actually here but when I get up every morning singing the Peggy Lee classic, “Is that all there is?” then I think if I’m not there I’m very close. Mid-Life crisis – Don’t Get Me Started!

I’m not saying that I’m suicidal (as I decided after I could no longer be a homosexual teenage suicide statistic that it really wasn’t worth it). If I’m going to die by my own hand, I’d at least like to help a cause and be part of some sort of statistic.

Here’s the deal, I know Newsweek recently had an entire cover story dedicated to male depression but I’ve always prided myself on not running with the emotional pack. I have always been my own “dare to be different” seminar since my days of parachute pants and Duran Duran hair (before either was popular). I wouldn’t call this depression as much as I would call it a discovery that you aren’t the person you always thought you would become. As someone I knew in high school remarked about me when it was getting close to our twenty year reunion and we hadn’t heard from one another in all those years. He apparently said to a mutual friend, “What DID ever become of Scott? I always thought he would have Matthew Broderick’s career by now.” So did I and for the record, I don’t.

I guess there comes a time (soon after you discover gray pubic hair) when you have to face the fact that no matter how young you look or feel that you are getting closer to death. In my case it’s not a matter of looking old, hell, I still say that I could play Peter Pan in the right lighting and when I tell people that I’m forty-two they are shocked. My classic line is that I sleep in formaldehyde! Smells funny but keeps you looking great. No it’s more than running on the treadmill of life not losing a pound while the twenty year old next to you is doing half as much as you and looks twice as good as you. I’m finally starting to understand why people become bitter in their old age.

And may I present a big special, “Fuck You” to Oprah and “The Secret” people. Yet another reason we have to blame ourselves for not being happy. If you don’t think positive enough long enough and hard enough and surround yourself with happy people you’re doomed. It’s more and more like when Tinkerbell eats the poison to save Peter Pan and he has to make the audience clap really loud to show they really believe in fairies to make her live. Well, here I am, taking the poison for the world at large and no one is clapping. What chance do I have for survival?

Contrary to the previous paragraphs, I’m still not as cynical as I could be at this point in the game. (Years ago my first boyfriend who was eleven years my senior though the age he gives to everyone now makes him five years younger than me, used to say that I was “jaded beyond my years”) Is it so wrong of me to just want someone to come in and fix everything for me? I mean, if you had your choice would you want to learn how to be a plumber and then fix your pipes or would you rather someone made the call and paid for a professional to come in and fix your plumbing issues? I know a lot of my friends swear by therapy and perhaps that’s where all of this is headed but having a really close friend who is a therapist I know for a fact that most of the people sitting in the chair across from the couch you’re lying on are nuttier than you are for chrisssakes! I’ll just record myself saying things like, “uh huh…hmmm….and how did that make you feel?” and see if that works before forking over money to go to the real thing. Can you even imagine what these blogs would read like if I was in therapy or medicated?

No, for now I guess my therapy is going to just be me screaming in my Mini Cooper with all the windows rolled up and singing along with the Dreamgirls soundtrack with Effie as she asks, “What about how I feel? What about what’s best for me? What about how I feel?” One thing I know for sure is that I need to keep away from all television that could make me even slightly emotional. No Extreme Home Makeover, no reunion shows on Maury and no Animal Planet, I can’t take the risk that it’ll push me over the edge and I’ll be out on the street looking to score some Kava Kava to crunch up and snort.  (I Detest Cheap Sentiment - Don't Get Me Started!) And finally, I’ll look for inspiration the only place I know I’m sure to find it…old Hollywood movies…as Scarlett would say (and I’m paraphrasing), “I won’t think about this now. I can’t. If I do I’ll go crazy. I’ll think about it tomorrow. After all, tomorrow is another day.” Mid-Life crisis – Don’t Get Me Started!

Send your thoughts, cash and "secrets" to scott@somelikeitscott.com

Of Cell Phones And Cars – Don’t Get Me Started!

So there are a couple states that are trying to make it illegal for teens to use their cell phones while driving. Some other states are trying to outlaw text messaging while driving for teens. It’s supposedly all about the bad teen drivers but as someone who uses their cell phone while driving (of course I use a Bluetooth headset usually because I’m very bi-techual) let me just say that we all need to admit that driving and talking on the phone is not a good thing. Of cell phones and cars – Don’t Get Me Started!

That’s right, using a cell phone in a car absolutely distracts you and anyone that says it doesn’t is a complete liar. How many times have you had to ask yourself if the light you just went through was green, yellow or red? Yes, this happens when you’re driving without talking on a cell phone but I think it happens more often when you are talking on a cell phone. Now let me say that I have been on the freeway and seen people reading newspapers, books and applying makeup. All of these activities should be left for the bathroom of your home and not for driving, especially in freeway traffic.

Having said all of the above I have to say that I try to be more hyper sensitive to the roadway when I’m on my cell. Yesterday I was on my cell phone without my headset and was turning left when a car traveling the opposite direction from me turned right. I was in the left lane and he was in the right lane. As the driver of the Ford Festiva from the 80’s started driving alongside me, he drifted from his lane (right) into my lane (left). There was no turn signal, no anything. And then, just as I was being astonished and pissed off about the fact that he drifted into my lane and I had to slow up as to not cause a collision, he then began drifting until he was actually just driving down the middle of the road! Honestly, he was centered on the two lanes. I did what anyone would do, I honked my horn. I saw him look in his rear view mirror and correct himself so that he was back in the left lane. Then he did it. He made a gesture like he was holding up a phone to his ear (no doubt mocking me) and then flipped me off! I got in the right hand lane and sped past him. True, I was on my cell phone but I had stayed in my lane the entire time while he was drifting from lane to lane to the center of the damn roadway! And yet I’m sure the story he told his friends and family was that there was this crazy driver on his cell phone behind him who honked at him for no reason.

Recently during a garage sale at my mother’s (a long story and a blog definitely for another day) one of our looky loos (didn’t buy a thing, after finding that we didn’t have any military items – as if Jews would) started in a whole story (unsolicited) about how he had been rear ended four times, each time by a woman on a cell phone. He just shook his head in a way that has rarely been seen since the 1950’s when men blamed women drivers for everything. The point is that there are a lot of bad drivers out there and while I agree putting a phone in the mix is not good we also have to face the fact that some people are just bad drivers who get on our nerves. And as unbelievable as it may seem, bad drivers come in all forms – men, women, teens and old people.

So let’s admit that we’re all less than great drivers when on a phone and teens who have been driving for less time are even worse. We should all give up the cell phones for our own safety as well as others. Let’s face it, with all the really bad drivers out there do we really need to arm them with an additional distraction? Of cell phones and cars – Don’t Get Me Started!

In the latest on the whole General Pace comment regarding homosexual acts being immoral; some of the other presidential hopefuls have weighed in. Per usual, their answer is a lesson in political ridiculousness. Kansas senator and presidential hopeful, Sam Brownback (again I say, could these people’s names evoke any more gay images? Or is it just me?) is writing a letter to the President praising General Pace’s comments and asking other congressmen to sign it. However, like most politicians he left the closet door ajar a bit by saying that he doesn’t think homosexuality is immoral but homosexual acts are indeed immoral. In other words, be gay but don’t be gay (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) – Don’t Get Me Started!

Meanwhile, Mitt Romney (the Mormon Presidential candidate) spoke in circles stating that he felt Pace’s comments were “inappropriate for public discourse” then stating the great thing about America is that Pace can think whatever he wants but said in a governmental setting, the right way to go is to show more of an outpouring of tolerance. He went on to tell Larry King that he didn’t feel the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy made a lot of sense but he wouldn’t change it now. Isn’t that who you want for President? A man who knows a policy is wrong but does nothing about it? Someone who wants the “show” of tolerance but doesn’t really mean any of it? But since America isn’t ready for a Mormon president, we don’t have much to worry about.

For all the supposed strides that gays have made we are still meant to be seen, laughed at but not politically heard and certainly not thought of as having sex! Eeek! And by all means, whenever there is talk of gay sex, make sure that you talk about orgies, Sodom and Gomorrah, sex with children and the entire animal kingdom.

Last night I saw commercials for two different sitcoms that had the flamboyant gay character and the straight characters responding accordingly. You know, the “Oh those gays, with their pink feather boas, they are zany aren’t they?” I mean, when you look at it closely enough, we are the new black people. Back in the “Golden Age of Hollywood” blacks were mostly seen tap dancing, being a servant to a white person or bugging their eyes out for an extreme reaction take. And who could forget all the performers like Al Jolson (who performed in black face) and even Judy and Mickey, “blacking up” for a finale in one of their movies with their gross imitation/exaggeration of blacks? My point is that when you stop to think about it, we gays have taken their place. If the character is gay they are either used as “entertainment” for the straight people in the script, waiting on the straights or “clutching their pearls” and gasping in an extreme reaction take. When the “straights” play “gay” on a show, they are always camping it up, going over the top much like Jolson or Mickey and Judy. And while I know a lot of people don’t feel it’s a fair comparison all you have to do is look at one episode of Will and Grace or any other show with gay characters to see that we gays are the ones tap dancing, serving and delivering the over-the-top takes in television today.  

“Playing” gay seems to be an obsession in this country. People find it hysterical to lisp, show a limp wrist or butch it up if you’re doing a lesbian impersonation. But when it comes to actually being gay suddenly everyone gets very serious. Much like the politicians are saying to us, some people don’t care if we’re gay just don’t make them think about us really being gay – you know, having sex.  Well, here’s the news flash, there aren’t too many people I want to think about having sex. I mean come on, do you really want to imagine Hillary and Bill Clinton going at it? Oprah and Stedman? The list goes on and on. So I suggest that they stop thinking about the sex and start thinking about the person. I’m sure if we knew half of the stuff that people were doing in their bedrooms we’d never be able to make eye contact with anyone we know ever again. So let’s do the right thing and leave what happens in the bedroom (alley, airplane bathroom, etc.) to the people actually engaged in the act and do our best not to think about it. On the other hand, don’t ask me to lie about having sex with the same sex, or play the fop for you so that you can convince yourself I’m an asexual court jester put on this earth for your entertainment. And I certainly won’t listen to everything in the media and from politicians that says be gay but don’t be gay (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) – Don’t Get Me Started!

Much like E.F. Hutton apparently, when General Pace talked, everyone listened. What didn’t happen right away were statements from the Democrat front runners in the presidential campaign (a campaign that will be going on for the next year and a half at this point, ugh). Instead they decided to do the “political” thing by not really dealing with the statement but with it being expressed publicly. Instead of saying that they agreed or disagreed with Pace (right away anyway, Hillary did come out later against the actual viewpoint expressed by Pace and a spokesman for Obama said later in the day that Obama disagreed with the remarks) they said that they felt he should not have expressed his personal views publicly. Hillary, Barack, love us, hate us, just tell us – Don’t Get Me Started!

From the time I was a small child to today I have spent my life trying to get as many people as possible to like me and the one thing that I’ve learned is that this is like being on a treadmill with no “off” switch. You never get anywhere, you work up a sweat, there’s no end in sight and it is exhausting. If your focus is on getting other people to like you have the wrong focus. The cliché is 100% accurate, if you don’t like you, you stand less of a chance that any one else is going to like you. I know from personal experience that some people may not “like” you because they don’t like what you’re wearing, what car you’re driving, how you speak, what religious affiliation you have and the list goes on and on. Some people even subscribe to the theory that we all give off auras and scents that either attract or repel certain people to and from us. It’s okay not to like everyone just respect people enough to let them know where you stand.

Honestly, I don’t mind (well, I mind but what I mean to say is that I’ll respect your point of view) if people hate me because I’m Jewish, gay, am with a black man (for over 18 years now) so long as you are honest about it. Honestly, what can I do about it? Can I hand out or go door to door like the Jehovah Witnesses or the Mormons to try and get people to “see the light”? (Are there any hard numbers on how effective this approach is for “converting” people?) Should I invite the “haters” to sit down to a cup of coffee at Starbucks and try to convince them as I caffeine them up? These approaches just feel like taking someone to rehab before they are ready. I can’t make you agree with me or like me by forcing you, but I do believe we can expose people to our real stories enough so that as the Christians love to say, “When you’re ready to receive it in your heart” (not Jesus but the information) is there for you.

I remember the first time I went to a doctor here in Vegas. I insisted on finding a doctor that was “gay friendly” and although my guy told me I was crazy and that I should look more at qualifications than for the rainbow sticker on the doctor’s car, I choose to look to the rainbow. Although the doctor had no bedside manner (he told me that his boyfriend was a lawyer and when I remarked, “Oh my God, the two of you together is like a Jewish mother’s wet dream.” He just looked confused, he didn’t get it. I should have known then that I was in trouble) he was gay; which seemed the only important qualification at the time. As the doctor was going through his usual “get to know the patient” questions, he asked me about my sexual activity. When I explained that I had been in a completely monogamous relationship with the same man for 13 years (at the time) his face contorted. He stammered seemingly not knowing what to say and then finally after a few seconds uttered this now famous line to me, “Oh, um, well…good for you.” I still don’t know what he meant. Good for me that I was in a monogamous relationship? Good for me that I could find someone? Good for me that I found someone to put up with me for that many years? What? I’ll never know what he meant and I don’t think even he knew. I think that maybe he was just uncomfortable with someone who was honest and even though he was gay, a long-term relationship and being homosexual just didn’t go together in his mind. He had only been in his relationship for a short time and there had been much breaking up, back together, etc. (Can you see how I become everyone’s therapist within the first five minutes of meeting them? Gift or curse, I don’t know, I’m just pissed I can’t charge them for the advice! “That’ll be five cents, please.”)

My point is that like Hollywood celebrities, it’s the exposure that is important. (Except in the case of the panty-less Britney Spears because honestly, who wants to see that? She needed to “hit the cymbals” (put her knees together) as my grandmother would say) My theory is that the more people that see us “normal gays” the more they will realize we have a lot in common because we’re all human. Sure, we may know more about them when it comes to putting a sofa or throw pillow in the right place but we still put on our eyelashes like them, one at a time. Seriously, unless you are very impressionable (you know, like the people targeted and easily converted to cults) I think the best way to desensitize a situation is continued exposure (not talking George Michael in a bathroom here).

All I can do is live my life the best way I know how, being as nice to the population at large (I am a constant door holder for strangers) and allow them to feel however they want to feel. I won’t try to “butch it up” (because I have been a miserable failure when I tried that approach) and I also won’t flit and swish for effect. I’m not saying that everyone should be in a monogamous gay relationship with a black man for a million years and own two cats, that’s just who and what I am and what works for me. (And as my doctor would say, “Good for me.”) Don’t ask me to be less than I am and I won’t ask you to be more that you can be when it comes to understanding my choices. But let me know where you stand so that I know whether to avoid you or purposely make you crazy by being in your face. And when someone asks me, I’m going to tell them proudly who I am and what I think. There’s a certain honor in being honest. I wish our politicians understood that more than they did their popularity polls. Hillary, Barack, love us, hate us, just tell us – Don’t Get Me Started!

Okay, I love how everyone is all up in arms (get it?) that the top US Military Officer, General Peter Pace (and if that name doesn’t sound like a gay porn star I don’t know what does) said that he thinks homosexual acts are immoral. Whooo, really big surprise there, I better call my cardiologist for some nitroglycerin for under my tongue at the shock of these comments. Immediately lawmakers (who love how the gays throw fundraisers and give them money) and a (that’s right, only one) gay rights organization wanted an apology but the general was standing his ground on this battlefield when all of a sudden, late in the day he makes the statement that he should not have focused on his personal views in the interview and just stated that he supported the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. Come on, I thought military guys are supposed to be tough. The top general, Peter Pace, becomes a bottom for the press – Don’t Get Me Started!  

So why I ask you would all of this be coming to a (pardon the expression) head in the media on this particular day? Um…could it be to get our minds off of the fact that George Bush’s token Hispanic, Alberto Gonzales’ cover was (again, you’ll pardon the expression) blown about systematically firing US attorneys that didn’t go along with the white house agenda? Another case of the white house thinking everyone has A.D.D. like they do. Now I’ll admit that we gays like shiny things but it won’t always make us look the other way, even when you parade a guy in uniform with shiny medals on his chest in front of us.

As far as Peter Pace goes, did you see the picture of him with George W. at the National Prayer Breakfast in February 2007? Did you even know there was such a thing because I didn’t know anything like it existed? Just another great example of the separation of church and state, George W! But back to the matter at hand, right? I have to say that I’m surprised anyone is surprised that the top military brass finds homosexual acts immoral. And to Peter Pace’s defense, he also called out adulterers too. So, when you consider that most of the world finds it impossible not to commit adultery (and since we gays can’t marry we can never technically be adulterers), I guess we’re finally being lumped in with a group that is considered pretty normal.

As I’ve said before, I would much rather know who hates me and who doesn’t. Not to mention the whole thing about supposedly having free speech in this country. Some of us gays aren’t dumb enough to think that because he wears a uniform he speaks for everyone in the military or that a lot of the supposed “straightees” who are in Iraq right now wouldn’t want to trade places with a gay (or anyone for that matter) just to get the hell out of there. The people we should really feel sorry for are General Pace’s family. Because as we all know, there’s a gay in every family. You usually don’t have to use a gay detector to find one somewhere in your family’s past or present. Not to mention the fact that this guy must be a real hoot in bed, right?

On another front that has me saying, “Don’t ask, don’t tell” me is ex-Idol sort of finalist Mario Vasquez (he quit the competition in 2005 stating he had family issues that prevented him from staying in the competition). Well apparently he really left the show because he pulled (himself) out in front of an accountant at Fox studios trying to do the accountant George Michael style in the bathroom. Oh Mario, don’t you know you have to be famous first for something like this to work? And did you really need to go stall hopping? Come on Mario, you’re more attractive than that, you should be able to find sex like the other gays out on the street or Craigslist. How long do we think it will be before he shows up at rehab for a sex addiction to try and get out of the pending lawsuit? And weren’t you surprised it was Mario and not Ryan?

I don’t find what Mario did so much immoral as just stupid. I mean, he was on Idol and had he waited he could have had every gay and supposed straight man in a bathroom or anywhere else. Or maybe bathroom sex falls under the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy? I don’t know we’ll have to ask General Pace because he’s the top general. The top general, Peter Pace, becomes a bottom for the press – Don’t Get Me Started! 

Bush Is Playing With Time and Captain America Is Dead! – Don’t Get Me Started!

I spent most of my formative years in Arizona where the time was always just what it was; no spring forward, fall back. It was all just look at the clock and whatever time it was, that’s the time that it was. So when I moved back east, it took me forever to even begin to understand the whole concept. I still don’t understand it. Bush is playing with time and Captain America is dead – Don’t Get Me Started!

I know nothing about this whole thing although after reading a couple of web articles I now know that we have Benjamin Franklin to thank for this whole confusing mess. I mean, it sounds good in theory, to try and get an extra hour of sunlight but excuse me isn’t that why Edison invented the light bulb for us? And as if it isn’t bad enough that it happens every year, this year, the one the only, President Bush changed it to be three weeks early.

Now I know he says he had sound reasoning for doing this but to me it just seems like another example of “Look what I can do, I can change the clocks, I can make time move, I am the master of the universe…heh…heh…heh.” For someone that is on the largest ego trip since Mr. T, it would appear that he wants to do as much as possible to prove that he can do whatever he wants without any real consideration for the world at large. “I pity the poor congress that tries to stop me.”

Now for those of you who don’t know, last week Marvel Comics killed off Captain America. And I have to say that the longer that Bush is in office the more he seems like some comic villain that we need to call out the League of Justice to either put him behind bars or take him out and leave him in the fortress of solitude. He is simply out of control and each day he exhibits more and more character tendencies of an arch villain from the comics. He has an unusually high sense of always being right (to the point of it being a mental illness), he has a ton of henchmen around him (think of the guys in the cat hats that worked with Catwoman on the 60’s Batman series) and he’s teamed up with other villains (Halliburton, etc.) to carry off his evil plans. What a bad time for Marvel to kill off Captain America when we need him to go kick some ass in the white house.

Maybe I’m just cranky because I lost an hour of sleep this past weekend or maybe, just maybe we really need some real heroes right now. Oprah is busy in Africa, maintaining her weight and preaching the gospel of The Secret so she is out. Hillary should be busy looking for some good Thermage treatments. Rudy Giuliani is looking for a run in his stockings and Barack is busing paying parking tickets from the eighties. For awhile there we thought that Nancy Pelosi was a thinly veiled alter ego and some of us were sure she was going to pull out her golden lasso and invisible plane and kick some ass but unfortunately, the closest she’s come to being like a comic book character is having The Joker’s smile.  

I guess we’ll all just have to sit tight and see what the mega evil villain George Bush and his henchmen have for us next. Now that he has changed time, he’s got to be feeling mighty powerful. I’m thinking next he’ll try to control the weather like that storyline from General Hospital in the 1980’s or that bad remake of The Avengers. The good news is that evil may triumph for a little bit but it’s always defeated in the end. Usually it’s when the villain goes into his whole monologue describing how he was able to almost pull of his evil plan but in the case of George W, it’ll be another press conference where he mixes metaphors and stumbles so much that like a comic villain he’ll expose his own stupidity and weakness. Oh wait, he’s already done that several times, right? Well, guess I’d better go and figure out what I’m going to do with all that extra sunlight tonight. Bush is playing with time and Captain America is dead  – Don’t Get Me Started!

Memo To American Idol: You Are Not Oprah – Don’t Get Me Started!

I get it, believe me, that there are children and adults the world over who are homeless, living in appalling situations and as human beings we should gather together and work to assist these children and adults. What I don’t get is why there are apparently only two places for us to worry about, Africa and New Orleans. Nor do I understand what I witnessed last night on American Idol. Memo to American Idol: You are not Oprah – Don’t Get Me Started!

Before we can even get to the “big stage” there is all ready controversy this year with American Idol (and for once it isn’t Randy’s weight or Paula’s wackiness). Did American Idol turn a complete blind eye to the nasty photos of Antonella because she was a white girl when they made Frenchie (who is black) leave the competition a couple years ago for some lingerie photos? Probably, they probably also knew that unlike Frenchie (who was talented) that Antonella was probably never going to make it to the final twelve so they may as well just let her be voted off and done with early on by America.

I don’t care so much about that or the fact that they should really just send all the boys home and do the show with the girls who are so much more talented than the boys this year. It almost seems mean to keep the guys there week after week as weak as they are comparatively. What made me cringe and want to throw up a little in my mouth last night was the whole unveiling of “Idol Gives Back” an upcoming two night charity event to be featured on American Idol.

I know what you’re saying, “Scott how can you be so awful, it’s for a good cause. They are using some of the bazillion dollars they have accumulated for the good of homeless kids in Africa and New Orleans.” Here’s what gets me. First of all, the footage of Ryan playing with the children through the barbed wire was disgusting. These are children; you’re not at the San Diego zoo sticking your hand in the monkey’s cage. I particularly loved the part where Simon was “acting” as if he was teaching them something. This looked like a set up for a still photo that should not have been caught on any camera taking actual moving pictures because although he was sitting surrounded by kids he really wasn’t interacting with them at all. The whole thing looked like it was done on a backlot at Fox studios and to make it worse; the scripted dialogue was so bad between Ryan, Randy, Paula and Simon that they sounded like bad award presenters from a People’s Choice award. I say, nice try but leave the kids in Africa to someone who knows what in the hell they are doing, um hello, Oprah.

But more than Ernie and Bert (Simon and Ryan) going to Africa to help the homeless children, I’m a little tired of the fact that celebrities seem to think that the only places where there is homelessness is where their publicists tell them it looks good for them to help. Look around people. I live in Vegas where there are plenty of homeless people. I’ve seen them in LA and almost every city I’ve been to in the United States. Why aren’t we helping our own? All I’m saying is that there are plenty of people to help who weren’t affected by Katrina and aren’t living in Africa.  

Could it be that small black children are more “camera ready” to tug on our heart strings than say a drug addicted mother of three who is on the streets of LA? I’m not saying we should not be helping other countries, I’m just wondering how much longer we can walk around with our heads up acting like the world’s super powerful rich benevolent relative when we have major problems in our own backyard that we don’t acknowledge. Call me crazy but when we have flawed educational systems, no health care for most of America and a government that treats many of us like second class citizens who do we think we’re fooling when we dress up like Scarlett O’Hara, going over to these other countries acting all rich and great with a dress really made from the drapes? I’m pretty sure they see right through us but who would say anything when they’re getting our money?

We are quickly becoming the Emperor with no clothes. Will no one tell the celebrities about the children here who need to be adopted? The people here who need homes and health care? I say we should give one celebrity to each cause. Let’s go ahead and give the Comic Relief people New Orleans and Oprah can have Africa (are you listening Madonna, Brad and Angelina?). And American Idol should stick to what it knows; being a singing competition and if it wants to help people with their billions of dollars, why not focus on the ones who are in the title of the show, Americans, all Americans (who by the way, don’t all live on the bayou). Memo to American Idol: You are not Oprah – Don’t Get Me Started!

Well again this weekend, Las Vegas will be turned into one of the largest trailer parks in recorded history as the NASCAR fans enter our fine city. It’s Thursday and they have all ready started pouring in with their coolers, their guts and are dressed to thrill with their favorite NASCAR t-shirt on (pay no attention to the bean dip stain that just won’t seem to come out no matter how much they Shout). You look at these people and you can just see it in their eyes, they are not human, they are from some subterranean place like the oil well at the Jiffy Lube. Do they ever see sunlight or clean fingernails? And yet, according to the profits and the publicity, we’re supposed to be, “One Nation, Under NASCAR,” I don’t get it - Don’t Get Me Started!

Now I know you think I’m making some gross exaggerations and/or that I’m stereotyping all of these people and you would be correct. But I ask you, how can I help myself? These are people who sit in bleachers for hours on end to watch cars go around in a circle all day while they eat hot dogs, corn dogs and any other kind of dog that will make them part of the obese majority. These are people who have the mini fridge built into their sectional sofas at home so that they never have to miss a minute of the car going around the track for the 459^th time. “Whoa, did ya see him a-goin’ down the straightaway?”  

Much like the evolution of man you can trace the ancestry of the NASCAR people very easily. Unfortunately, the NASCAR fans seem a bit less evolved then the rest of the universe. Follow their time line along with me of how they became the modern day Neanderthals. They cut their teeth on the WWF wrestling craze, moved up to monster truck pulls and eventually found their home watching a bunch of good old boys race around the track with the Viagra logo on their car.

Is anyone surprised that the whole NASCAR thing seems to be Southern and Christian based? That’s right; for the most part you won’t see New York Jews all excited about NASCAR. The NASCAR gang is definitely akin to the Maury/Springer set. They have most of their teeth and the only thing worth debating to them is Chevy or Ford. God love them, they are a simple people who are led by marketing people who have taken product placement to a whole other level. What amazes me is how the people in the corporate culture now go on and on about it. I think it’s because it really is a sport that doesn’t require you to know anything about averages or anything. All you have to know is who crashed, who won and who is endorsing what for you to buy so you can be just like your hero.

Today as I came in to work there was a very long line of people waiting. One quick glance and you know immediately that these people are the NASCAR people waiting for an audience with one of the drivers. I’ve never been a big autograph hound so this is odd to me to begin with but when you see this bunch you definitely know that they are not waiting in line to meet the Queen. These people look like they’re waiting for Van Halen tickets to go on sale in the 80’s. (At least from all the big hair the wives and girlfriends are sporting) And what is it about them and coolers? Yes, these people seem to be eternally attached to their coolers. I don’t know what they have in the coolers or why they have to have them with them at every moment but apparently, it’s a NASCAR man’s best friend.

We are such a diverse population of people but it seems the more diverse we get the more we all have to jump on the same bandwagon. I’ll watch American Idol with everyone else but I have to draw the line at acting like I’m all excited that the cars are making it around the track again. It’s not like they’re going across the country or racing down the Strip (like the old Wacky Racers cartoons), it’s really just two curves and two straightaways.

Maybe what’s happened is that our expectations have all lowered. We no longer cheer the athletes that jump higher, longer or run faster than the wind (see how low the ratings were for the last Olympics compared to any NASCAR broadcast). We want people we can relate to, people who just sit behind the wheel of a car and don’t have to loosen their belt when they eat too much because all they have to do is unzip their coveralls a little bit. These are people we can truly make our personal heroes, our modern day messiahs. One Nation, Under NASCAR,” I don’t get it - Don’t Get Me Started!

Cigars and Assholes Have More In Common Than Smell – Don’t Get Me Started!

Apparently if you are a man and come to Vegas, even if you don’t smoke, upon arrival by plane, car, bus or train the minute you arrive you must smoke a cigar. I don’t know what this crazy phenomenon is but you see it time and time again. I don’t care if they are in their seventies or seventeen; they have to have a cigar in their mouth the moment they arrive. Am I confused, is Vegas a lot closer to Cuba than I thought? (It could very well be the case as I am the worlds worst when it comes to geography. I never got my blue “piece of pie” in Trivial Pursuit and all I’m really good for is left and right, once you start with the north and south business I think of mini-series, not direction). I have been around a lot of smokers in my day and while it’s not the prettiest habit in the world, it would win a pageant compared to the people who smoke cigars. Because there’s an amazing thing I’ve discovered; and that is that cigars and assholes have more in common than smell – Don’t Get Me Started!

What I have discovered is that almost 100% of the time, not only does the cigar smell like an asshole; the person smoking it IS an asshole. Perhaps it’s a prophetic sensory thing, you know like, you are what you eat? These men walk around with their guts out and their hair they just rinsed out in the sink and think that they are really doing something. I don’t know who is more of an asshole, the men that smoke the cigar or the ones you see continually walking around with one unlit in their mouth that look like Mr. Magoo or one of the Pep Boys (when they used to let the boys smoke). The only exception I’ve ever seen to the cigar rule is George Burns and he was using it to comic effect. Would that these lameos walking around would understand how funny they look.

Now I know that some of the gays are “clutching their pearls” at the thought of me talking about idiots with cigars and not talking about the fact that some of the boys find it hot. I guess they do find it hot if they’ve never had a real male role model in their life and need to get off by having someone who is not a real man but plays one in the gay culture flick ashes on their ass during sex. These would be the same gays who make their body look like Vin Diesel but can’t say his name without it sounding as though their tire just sprung a leak.  

I will admit that I smoked for a while. I smoked Benson and Hedges Menthol Deluxe Ultra-Lights (this is the gayest cigarette in the world next to Eve – the thin and long cigarette). I was never one of those people who needed a cigarette first thing in the morning or during a meal – still don’t understand these people. No, I liked to smoke at parties with a drink in my hand and gesture a lot. It was my prop. And although I wouldn’t have called myself a serious smoker, I (unlike certain presidents) did inhale and kind of liked the minty coolness of the addictive, cancer causing smoke as it entered my black lungs stunting my growth. (what’s not to like here, huh?) Apparently the whole idea behind a cigar is that you don’t inhale. In fact if you do, you will apparently puke or die right on the spot. Again, I don’t get it.

This morning I went to Starbucks and outside at a table there were two men that looked to be in their forties or fifties. They were the only two people at the Starbucks so I had to assume that the vehicles parked in front belonged to them (a motorcycle and a Hyundai). They were both smoking cigars, leaning back in their chairs and doing that whole, “Look at me, I’m smoking a cigar so I’m a swaggering big wig, hey look at me some more” kind of thing. I dodged around them to ensure that the smoke didn’t get me and went into the Starbucks. When I came out moments later, there they still were, talking, laughing, puffing, choking and spitting. Now what could be more attractive than that, I ask you?

Here’s the deal guys, when you smoke a cigar or even when you’re just rolling it around in your mouth, you don’t look big and tough, you look like you’re practicing to give a blow job (Aha, now we know why the gays love it). You think it makes you look more masculine when in fact, the exact opposite is true. I know that you’ve watched Ben Affleck smoke cigars and that you’re secretly hoping that Cigar Aficionado magazine will shoot you for the cover but in reality, you’re just stinking up the place with the smoke and your lack of self esteem. So be Rex Harrison and smoke a pipe or even smoke a joint but remember that when you smoke a cigar, cigars and assholes have more in common than smell – Don’t Get Me Started!

Christ Called And He’s Decided Not To Cover The Sin That Is Ann Coulter! – Don’t Get Me Started!

 

Having only been a thespian in my life (no, not a lesbian, a Thespian – look it up) and not a theologian, I have to say that I’ve never gotten the whole “Christ died for our sins” thing but Ann Coulter apparently knows all about it. She even quoted it once in a speech in an “I don’t care who knows it, I know that Christ died for my sins” kind of way. That may be all well and good for her but much like the loons who say Christ talks to them all the time, Christ called and he’s decided not to cover the sin that is Ann Coulter! – Don’t Get Me Started!

Long have I been and will continue to be a supporter of free speech so I pretty much think anyone can say what they want (even if I don’t like it) because after all, isn’t that what makes us America and Americans? So I don’t know if I mind the comment as much as I do the fact that once again, the holier than thou set’s crazy is showing. Much like Dr. Laura before her and Nancy Grace, they start out seemingly normal but once they get a theme song, a show and/or a book deal they become Anthony Newley; cartoons of themselves and full up of their own importance. Their image and ego becomes much larger than their abilities. (So does their hair)

Now I’ve watched Ann Coulter on Bill Maher and I’ve always thought that she was good for business, meaning that she talked a good game and she seemed pretty intelligent in representing the conservatives. I never quite cared for her nasal and whiny delivery but then again, not everyone can sound like Brenda Vaccaro, right? The point is that she didn’t appear to be mentally impaired but I’m afraid that her cover has now officially been blown. The poor thing has sunk to name calling which even though I don’t know him well, I would think would make Jesus melt her rubber What Would Jesus Do bracelet right off her wrist.       

The good news is that I’ve checked with the committee and if he wanted to, we would love to have John Edwards on our side. He’s cute enough and his wife is not only loaded but a hoot. I would much prefer him to the newly healed Haggard or some of the other people that have been associated with homosexuality recently. I think there are plenty of us who would even throw Lance Bass back for Edwards.

The thing is that I was called, “fag” every day for four years in high school (sometimes twice a day or more), have been called it in front of my face and I’ve also been called it behind my back in the corporate culture that is supposed to be so sensitive about how they talk (at least around other people) according to the “sensitivity” training I’ve been through. But at the end of the day, you can’t make people do what they should do from your book of moral ethics and I really don’t think legislating the “n” word or the “f” word as it’s now called (and let me say I’m a little more than disappointed that we can’t use this anymore to mean the word “fuck” now that the “f” word stands for fag apparently – are you listening Wikipedia?) will really change anything. Ignorance is bliss and it’s also really loud when it comes to expressing its opinions.

What really gets me is all the “get out of hell” free cards these morons think they get for saying something perfectly awful but following it up with or letting everyone know that they think Jesus has their back (having died for their sins, even though he never met them). How convenient, right? Here’s my new theory, the Christians are baiting Jesus. I think that they figure if they do enough crappy stuff in his name or rile him up enough, he’ll reappear. It’s like the reverse psychology you use on a two year old that seldom works because two year olds are smarter than us and so is Jesus. True, to some, Jesus has all ready appeared in such auspicious places as a grilled cheese sandwich and a doggy door. (Read the blog here Jesus Needs A New Booking Agent!) But for the most part, most are still waiting on him like a downtown bus.

At the end of the day, you have to ask if all the hoopla created around Ann Coulter’s recent statement is really worth anyone’s energy. Does she matter? Are we making her matter more than we should by giving her all this attention (again, think two year old)? Is it worse that she stopped herself from using the word fag or that she even thought it to begin with? And if a person thinks “fag” but doesn’t say it, does that somehow make them a better person, just for not saying it? I for one would prefer to know where I stand with someone (though most of the time you can see or sense the ones who are thinking “fag” but not saying it). Call us names if you want, that’s your right as an American but don’t be upset when we ignore you or stop giving you air time. (After all, we all know that other than Fox, the gays own television!) In addition, I’m a big believer in what goes around comes around so I just want to warn Ms. Coulter that she doesn’t have to wait until she dies to find out how her savior feels about her actions (or sins as it were) because Jesus called and he’s decided not to cover the sin that is Ann Coulter! – Don’t Get Me Started!

For those of you that saw the title of this blog and were just sure this was going to be about MySpace, you are wrong. No, this is about all the people who apparently have no sense of my space as compared to their space. You know who they are, they are the people who stand behind you in a bank and cough all over your neck, they are the people who stand so close in line you know what they ate at their last meal whether you want to or not. They are the people who just don’t understand the whole idea about each one of us having personal space. And I’ve had enough of them! Get out of my space (literally) – Don’t Get Me Started!

I understand that there is some sort of disease that is associated with this phenomenon that some doctors made up right after they invented Attention Deficit Disorder and before they invented Restless Leg Syndrome. (No, I’m not a Christian Scientist but some of these new diseases you just have to wonder about, don’t you?) I would like to be a therapist for these people and help them get over their inability to respect other people’s space. The therapy would begin with them right next to me and I would pinch them really hard, see I’m associating being close to me with pain (very therapeutic and yes, something people I’ve dated have said at one time or another). Next they would need to stand about four inches from me (see small steps are the way to go) now when they walk up and stand this close, I would smack them on the forehead with the palm of my hand, this would teach them that while they were no longer being pinched that they were still too close and what were they idiots to not know they were still in my space. We would continue on like this until eventually there would be about ten feet of space between me and anyone. I would be walking around in my invisible force field and they would finally get that if you’re too close, that you’re in smacking distance. Thus, smack therapy was born.

There was a guy behind me in the bank the other day who obviously needed smack therapy. He was so close that he would actually bump into me in his oblivion to anyone else but himself. Perhaps it was in an effort to make himself believe that the line was moving forward but it was still as annoying as hell. His friend was not in the line but they were conversing in Spanish while Miguel was in the line and Jose was out of the line. As the only other languages I speak other than English are a little bit of Hebrew and a little bit of Yiddish, I had no idea what they were saying but they seemed to be enjoying themselves as every once in a while they would laugh (and as we all know, laughter is a universal language). Just writing this it suddenly dawns on me that perhaps Miguel didn’t really have too-close-itis but that he was bumping into me on purpose so that he and Jose could have a laugh at my expense. (Now I’m even more outraged but what to do since I have no idea where they live and if I did could you really see me going over there and beating them up?) Finally I had to turn around and really let him have it with a look. This is a look I have spent years perfecting, it’s what I call, “Shocked and Appalled” – it includes one eyebrow up, the mouth slightly open and a look of general disbelief and disgust.

Next up was an office supply place. Now I have two vices, luggage and office supplies. I can’t walk out of either store without the, “I wants, I needs, I gots to have it” disease. At any rate, I’m standing in the line to pay when behind me comes flannel shirt guy. He practically bumps into me as he gets to the counter and has no clue that anyone else exists in the world. As the woman in front of me is paying for her things, he is behind me doing the classic, “sigh…blow out of air…sigh…<guttural noise that is unintelligible>”. Now it wasn’t taking long at all but here he was, blowing on my neck with his bad beat box technique (yes, my neck, not my ear, which I never understood why it would be perceived as something sexy but alas, that is a blog for another day). At this point he even began the whole tapping his items on the counter behind me. And although a lot of you are thinking, “Wow, a flannel shirt guy blowing down your neck and tapping on the counter, hello, that’s hot.” I’m telling you it was far from.

You can say that these people just have a lot on their minds or that they aren’t thinking at all but I want them to start thinking. I want them to back up at least a few yards and understand that bumping into me from behind will not make the line move faster or get you a date (well, not always). And if you have a disease then get it treated before you go out in public again because there are those of us who have frankly had enough of your lack of understanding that along with ballroom dancing (please see Dirty Dancing – the good one, the first one, not the Havana one that was made for apparently no reason that I can possibly understand) and life, there is your space and my space and as far as mine goes, get out of my space (literally) – Don’t Get Me Started!

Anna Nicole Gets A Ribbon – Don’t Get Me Started!

Well, they have finally laid her to rest but I’m sure that we still have a good month or two of the Anna Nicole show on every station. From Larry King to Entertainment Tonight, there’s no chance of them letting this die now that she is in her final resting place. We’ll need to have regular updates on the paternity of the baby, more speculation on Anna’s mother’s sudden concern for her dead daughter and grandson and finally the “tell-all” books that will begin appearing from the likes of Howard K. Stern and anyone else that ever brushed up against Anna Nicole. I did my level best not to watch any of the funeral proceedings but couldn’t help see a snippet where one of her “closest friends” was talking and was asked by a reporter about the pink and black ribbon she wore. The friend (acting as though it was taking everything she had to get it out) said, “Well, black was her favorite color…um…and this particular color pink…so we’re wearing them to show we remember Anna.” That’s right, Anna Nicole gets a ribbon – Don’t Get Me Started!

If I’m not mistaken the whole ribbon thing started as a sign of support for troops in another Bush’s war and were yellow so that the war’s theme song could be Tony Orlando and Dawn’s moving pop classic, Tie A Yellow Ribbon. Its next sighting was for Aids awareness and the bright yellow moved to bright red. From there the ribbon has been used to signify some pretty serious stuff from breast cancer awareness to child abduction. All really serious issues that deserve more of our attention as a society than just a ribbon but you figure if it makes people think about it then it must be a good thing. So as you can see I’m not the most heartless son of a bitch in the world and I get the ribbon thing (kind of). What I do not get is the one for Anna Nicole. While she was a beautiful person (outside) and every life is to be celebrated, I don’t need to think about her every time I put on my coat or get one of those silly magnetic “ribbons” for my car to signify to everyone else driving by me that I’m thinking of her. Mainly because I’m not and won’t be especially when Mark Steines and the rest of the so-called reporters give me back control of my programming.

Now Howard K. Stern who has lost his meal ticket, he should be wearing a ribbon. Because he does need to remember Anna every day and the way he was happy to sit next to her and her son as they drugged themselves into oblivion. He should be reminded every day how much he sponged off of her and how little true support he gave her in return. But Howard will do just fine I’m thinking because scum always land on their feet. Maybe he can become real pals with Lindsey Lohan or Britney Spears next. The one thing we can be assured of is that once the paternity question is settled, there’s no doubt in my mind that Howard is headed for rehab.

I’ve watched like everyone else as they continually show the two second clip of them taking Anna’s body into the hospital on the gurney with the sheet covering her about a zillion times and now I’m faced with seeing a much more gruesome image from the death of Anna Nicole, the dreaded coffin with the pink schmata on it. Can someone please tell me what that piece of shit was on top of that coffin? It looked liked one of the Muppets done as a bear skin rug or something. Not only did you have the marabou but you had the satin ribbons limply hanging over the side of the coffin. Then again, it was symbolic of her life, she loved the color pink and it looked cheap and thrown together in a hurry – weren’t those Anna’s trademarks?   

I tend to be a “let’s move on kind of guy”. I don’t think that Anna Nicole’s death will be something that will make the history books but I’m sure it will get its due time on MTV’s decade recap and that’s about all it deserves. I’m waiting for the rest of the merchandising to come out. You know, the t-shirts that say, “I Slept With Anna Too”, “Howard K. Stern You Are NOT The Baby’s Father” or the Anna inspired line of methadone. But for now Anna Nicole gets a ribbon – Don’t Get Me Started!