TB Plane Patient Overexposed? – Don’t Get Me Started!

So I’m on the elliptical machine at the gym this morning (listening to Glamorous Life by Sheila E. followed by C’est La Vie by Robbie Nevil) when I look up to see a white truck being filmed by a news crew on one of the monitors that carry news shows at that time of the morning. Across the scroll at the bottom it says, “Breaking News” and it seems as if the helicopter is having difficulty staying still enough to get a shake free shot of this truck as it drives at normal speed through traffic. This seemed all too familiar, a white vehicle driving the streets and getting news coverage? It was so dull to watch you couldn’t quite figure out why they would stay on this shot and yet you couldn’t look away. Of course, all I could think was that O.J. Simpson had killed again and was now making his getaway in a truck instead of a Bronco but then the scroll at the bottom of the television screen explained, “TB plane passenger being taken to Denver hospital for quarantine.” Obviously a slow news day. TB plane patient overexposed? – Don’t Get Me Started!

The news has been full of this story and frankly, while I understand the need for some concern, there are several doctors stating that the level of infection this guy had was so slight that the whole thing is being blown out of proportion. Be that as it may, I can tell you from a first hand experience, you can’t be too careful. We were headed to Arizona on yet another Southwest flight to go to a wedding or bar mitzvah or something. They loaded us on the “bus” airline and then we all just sat there. Suddenly you saw flight attendants, gate attendants and pilots walking to the back of the plane. What was to be an hour flight ended up being two hours on the tarmac in Vegas before we even took off for the hour flight to Arizona. Finally they came on the mic and told us that a woman had boarded the plane with three children, when she pre-boarded (Read my rant about pre-boarders…Pre-Boarders Are Killing Air Travel) one of the children was asleep in her arms. When the flight attendant assisted her in getting all her kids seat belted in, she noticed the one who was asleep was covered in red spots…chicken pox! So, they had to wait until they could contact the woman’s doctor to find out if the kid (the woman and her other two kids) were still infectious. They couldn’t get a hold of her doctor so they had the airline’s doctor assess the situation and finally she and her spotted kids were taken off the plane. When we landed in Arizona no one was allowed to leave the plane until a representative came on and told us that we would all be signing waivers that they had told us we could possibly have been exposed to chicken pox. If we agreed to sign the waiver, they would mail us I think $200 a piece in travel vouchers. Well, come on, it was a three hour tour that should have only been an hour; of course everyone was like, “Give me a barf bag and I’ll sign it, anything to get the hell out of here.”

Having never had chicken pox myself (and being a Jew, which translates into a hypochondriac) I of course was checking myself hourly for two weeks after the incident sure that I had not only contracted chicken pox but was also cursed with several other diseases. (Had it always hurt when I raised my arm this way or was it the start of degenerative arthritis?) So I get a little of what these passengers are going through and I have sympathy for them.

We all know that once you get on a plane you’re sucking in the worst air imaginable for the duration of your flight and I don’t care if you wear an Ion sensor around your neck, a surgical mask (in the hope of looking more like Michael Jackson) or wrap yourself in cellophane, you’re being exposed to the world’s nastiness during air travel. Get over it.

So while I agree that we should all be warned by fellow passengers of their communicable diseases, I also think that we need to understand that we’re not all that safe even if the person you’re fighting with for the arm rest has fresh breath and no signs of sickness. It’s just another pitfall of life, you know, like eating the 100 calorie packs like they’re going out of style and not understanding why you’re not losing weight when you didn’t eat real Oreos. Never admitting you have just ingested every little baggie in the box, consuming 12,000 calories and enough aspartame to pickle your kidneys. (Okay, well maybe that’s only my pitfall.)

The point is that they could have been filming a Wonder Bread truck for all we know and why we should have to see the transportation of a quarantined TB patient the same way we watched an ex-football star try to escape from police is beyond me. After all, they had their man. It wasn’t as if police and news crews were chasing a fugitive. From seeing pictures of Lindsay Lohan passed out in a limo to the TB patient, I’m as Ryan Seacrest used to say, “Scott Out!” TB plane patient overexposed? – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Gay Military Linguists Discharged! – Don’t Get Me Started!

Well honestly, the title of this blog sounds a bit like a gay porn video but today on CNN.com they have video of a military linguist who was thrown out just because he said that he wanted to serve his country as an openly gay soldier (He’s Jewish too but no worries, he’s not me, God knows). Apparently since the start of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” the military has lost about sixty of these much needed specialists as well as many more men and women in other areas of the service. The “family values” groups of course say that we would lose a lot more soldiers (you know; the straight “good” kind) who would refuse to serve next to an openly gay comrade if we let the gays be gays. Gay military linguists discharged! – Don’t Get Me Started!

Now for some of you, I know you’re still back on the word, “linguists” and I must admit it always takes me a second read to get over that word. I don’t know, for me there other words that come to mind that involve portions of the word that send my mind reeling in another direction. You know; cunning little words that have to do with giving oral sex to women. On the whole, it just seems like a lesbian word to me, doesn’t it to you? It’s like I’m one of those people who see words as colors and shapes or what have you. Okay I’m not; I think it’s just that I do word association because I was never good with my own language. Well, for those who need clarification, it isn’t the act of female oral sex; a linguist is someone who speaks several languages.

You see, the thing is that we gays are good at a lot of things and I’m not sure if it’s because we’re able to add an “S” into words that don’t even have one in the actual word itself (“Vanna, can I buy an “S”?) or what but apparently we’re good with a second, third and sometimes fourth language too. We apparently make great linguists. (And linguini if you happen to be dating an Italian!) As for me, all I know is a little Hebrew and that has more to do with “hocking” sounds in the back of your throat than the “S” sound. (Boys, mind – gutter – out) But here’s the deal, when the military is in great need of people to translate these languages I don’t understand why the need for the service is less important than who is giving the service. (Just ask the supposed straight guys who frequent and believe the posts on Craig’slist, stating “straight” guys are looking for a blow job from a “dude” just to try it out for the first time) Come on kids, let’s all grow up, shall we?

At any rate, with this ridiculous war you would think that the right wing would be trying to load the military up with us gays just to get rid of us. You know, get us on their soil so we don’t attack their crotches here. Isn’t that the big theory about terrorists and doesn’t it also apply to the gays cause we’re oh so similar? You know, we’re attacking the straightees way of life here in the US just like the terrorist attacked on 9/11, taking the lives of innocent people. Damn us gays, with our insidious plans of world domination by trying to “pair up” in marriage like the Wonder Twins from The League of Justice so that we have the same powers as the straight world. (“Shape of a human being, form of an equal citizen, wonder twins activate!”) They’re stopping our big plans of becoming equal citizens by disallowing us to marry just as effectively as they are winning the war on terror. Isn’t it time they just admit it? They need us. Whether it’s to translate languages, carry a gun, or do a myriad of other things, they need us. Could this be the same reason men don’t ask for directions? They’d have to admit that they can’t do it all themselves? (Well ask the “little women” behind the men, who have known for years us gays, I mean guys can’t do it on our own. Thus the reason gays have fag hags – sorry, ladies, I mean C.F.C.s (close female confidants) - too!)

With the loss of so many lives and now Cindy Sheehan no longer putting up a fight for the peace effort, who will stand up to the political posse that is our government to try to talk some sense into them? (You know we’re in trouble when we have to rely on Ben Affleck and Alec Baldwin.) I know us gays scare people (I think it has some correlation to our love of dressing up and the whole Halloween holiday but I don’t have any kind of clinical study to back my findings) but those who know and love us know that there’s really nothing to be afraid of at all.

Let me translate it into gay stereotypical references for you. The Wizard of Oz (Think the 1939 movie version, put the book and musical Wicked aside for just a moment). The government is like the Cowardly Lion, clutching their own tail and wondering who pulled it. We gays are of course, Dorothy (the small and meek) who want adventure, to help the people we meet along the way and ultimately just want to go home. The military is the projected image of the Wizard of Oz but much like the Wizard, they have no power and we should pay no attention to the man behind that curtain. If only they could see us this way instead of painting us as one of the witches, wishing our red and white candy cane striped hose was under a house, maybe, just maybe we could defeat the Wicked Witches of the West, East and anywhere else. After all, wasn’t it Dorothy who figured out that plain water would destroy the witch? Not the Wizard, not the Lion and certainly not the flying monkeys! Sure it may have been luck but what would have happened if she hadn’t been there at all? Gay military linguists discharged! – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Paris and Lohan; Take The Key And Lock Them Up – Don’t Get Me Started!

I let the Paris goes to prison storyline pass by as I thought that giving it as much attention as everyone else in the world would just feed into the ridiculousness of it all but with the new allegations against Lindsay Lohan, I can stay silent no longer. (Or for those who know me, it’s more like I can’t keep my trap shut any longer) Paris and Lohan; take the key and lock them up – Don’t Get Me Started!

Here’s the deal, both Paris and Lohan are part of not only a new celebrity phenomenon but a new party for pay deal that is just ridiculous. Although Paris would like you to believe that she makes her money on the runways of the world and Lohan would like you to believe that she makes her money riding around in Herbie the Love Bug, they really make the bulk of their money by attending parties. That’s right, I don’t know how many of you know this but they are actually paid a lot of money just to show up at a party because of the media attention it will give the shindig. What a life, right?

So you take people who have no grasp on reality that are pampered beyond reason, are prone to excess, pay them to party and what do you think you’re going to end up with? Perhaps they could just call it work related problems that they’ve both become sloppy drunks who drive around thinking they are above the laws of humanity. Or perhaps they can get workman’s comp for their injuries for yet another Mercedes driven into a tree in Beverly Hills. (You’ll all be happy to know that a certain vodka company has pulled out from sponsoring – in other words paying her and for – Lindsay’s birthday bash!)

What shocks me is the sympathy that goes out to them. I don’t get it. Look at Brandy, who is now being sued by the family of the person that she killed while driving drunk. Instead of feeling sorry for these celebs, when are we going to stop these children (even some that are of legal age, they have the mentality of children). And shouldn’t Entertainment Tonight be asking this instead of reporting stories like, “And now, we have photos of Lindsay puking on the sidewalk on Saturday after her Friday tree climbing experiment.” One has to wonder why these pampered poodles are driving anyway. I mean, from the reports, apparently Lohan had her chauffer driving them around all night but when she got back to her mansion at 5 am, they all piled into her convertible. (Obviously the destination was a tree because we all know how pretty trees are first thing in the morning in LA, especially when you’re looking at them through a cracked windshield.) Then she called her chauffer to come get her and take her to the hospital where the police finally tracked her down. So now I get it, a chauffer is for taking you around to parties and hospitals only, I had no idea.

I just think it’s about time we show the world that we’re not as stupid and starry eyed as we look when it comes to celebrities taking the lives of others in their hands because they were drunk. I’m suggesting that it’s time to make a celebrity jail. It won’t be like Promises (the famous Malibu rehab that most stars go to get away from their legal responsibilities when driving under the influence or other legal troubles). No, the celeb prison would be a place where there are only celebrities so they wouldn’t have to worry about being with the rest of prison population but they would have to pay to have it built and they would have to pay at least $1,000 a day to stay there. Already we could build a Mel Gibson, Brandy, Paris and Lohan wing (and that’s just the drunk tank). Similar to the way they treated the famous drunk, “Otis” in Mayberry on the Andy Griffith show, the celebs would just sit on display and anyone could come and look at them like animals in a zoo. This would create additional revenue and would assist the stars from not going into withdrawals from the press not following them. You could pay $10 to just watch them in their cells detoxing and for an extra $25 you could taunt them with your cell phone as you watch them go ballistic because they haven’t been able to text anyone the entire time they’ve been in jail. This would also serve as a way to show everyone that these celebs are no better than anyone else and in fact they’re a little more pathetic than most of us. Big signs would read, “Don’t feed the prisoners egos.”

I know some people think this is barbaric but isn’t it time we take some drastic measures? I mean come on, don’t your kids deserve better role models and don’t we all deserve something better for all the attention and money we give these celebs? Think about it, they could build the prison at Hollywood and Highland and then you could see the Kodak theater where they do the Oscars and Idol finale, see the famous Grauman’s where the celebs put their feet in cement and finish the day at the Hollywood Prison where the only bars celebs deal with are the ones they put their hands through to sign autographs. Ah, Hollywood the land of dreams. Paris and Lohan; take the key and lock them up – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Shouldn’t General Pace Be Pulling An Isaiah Washington? – Don’t Get Me Started!

Excuse me for not getting all excited about Isaiah Washington’s new public service announcement about how “words have power” to hurt or heal that supposedly premiered during reruns of Grey’s Anatomy last night. I am one of the six people in the world who don’t watch the show, don’t care about the show and was only affected by the “scandal” of Washington calling fellow co-star T.R. Knight a fag because people I know who do watch the show asked for my opinion. Here’s the deal, he’s an actor that got lucky landing a hit series (the same as Knight). These people have been on for what; one or two seasons and we know nothing about their background as far as education or political beliefs, etc. and guess what? We shouldn’t care. These are actors people, they’re paid to make you believe the character they’re playing and it doesn’t mean that they have to have personal character. Instead of worrying about Hollywood celebs being “mean” to the gays, shouldn’t we be more worried about the people who make our laws and lead our military? Shouldn’t General Pace be pulling an Isaiah Washington? – Don’t Get Me Started!

See we get so wrapped up in our celebrities that we forget that actors (and believe me I know from personal experience and include myself in this bunch) are a needy lot on the whole. They have low self-esteem from the constant rejection that is this business and although I never experienced it myself (as I’m the greatest never was been there ever was) I understand that once you get some fame it is all consuming to figure out how to keep it and continue to stay on top of your game. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not feeling sorry for the chosen few who make it in the business (getting to walk red carpets and drive one of their eighteen Hummers), I’m just saying that we have to understand that fame comes with its own set of problems and these people are usually just as needy as the abused wives on Maury.

What astonishes me is that we as a society focus on these actors instead of our leaders. I’m not saying it shouldn’t matter at all when someone is in the public eye and they spew hate, I’m just saying that the odds are both the actors in question probably won’t even have careers in five years (when the series is done) and will have no lasting affect on humanity while our political leaders’ opinions and legislation will affect us for a very long time to come.

For those of us who were bullied in school and beyond, we should know better than to allow the bullies to define us. (Because just like people not flying after 9/11, that means that the terrorists win.) Haven’t we learned anything from our past? And shouldn’t the organizations who sit down with stars that make these inappropriate comments do more than just create a PSA (Public Service Announcement) with the celeb and get a picture with them on their camera phone?

I know I’m just talking crazy when I question why we care about Mel Gibson hating Jews, Michael Richardson and/or Imus going off on Blacks and Washington or sports figures calling someone a fag. They don’t affect whether or not I can visit my mate in the hospital, they don’t change the fact that I can’t adopt in many states and what they say won’t make it possible for me to donate blood.

It’s not that I’m not concerned at all with public figures promoting a healthy environment endorsing people respect and get along with one another, it’s just that I’m just as worried about American Idol contestants at seventeen singing “She Works Hard For The Money” and “Roxanne” (songs that deal with prostitution) when the demographic for the show’s audience is kids as I am with Washington leaning over his cast mates backstage at an awards show lying when he says he didn’t call someone else on the show a fag.

If we’re going to put a big spotlight on actors and performers for being “inappropriate” to us gays shouldn’t we also focus on our political figures? In fact, shouldn’t we focus more on our political leaders? Maybe not, perhaps we’ve gotten it right as celebrities seem to be shaping the lives of our children and future generations much more than political figures or their parents. Political figures have become like banks, there’s really no option but to have a bank account and yet we allow them to abuse us with ridiculous charges (for things like ATMs) and make us feel bad about ourselves when we go asking them for help because we made a late payment in 1982. We allow them to abuse us, define us and pass judgment on us. But the difference is that as Lincoln said, “…government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from this earth.” So if that’s true shouldn’t we demand more from the “government of the people” as Lincoln said? Then again, it was an actor who killed him! Shouldn’t General Pace be pulling an Isaiah Washington? – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Just For Men – Haircolor For Men (Yeah, Gay Men,That Is) – Don’t Get Me Started!

Okay, so when the folded sealed card came in the mail with two men on the front with their capped teeth and they’re coordinating colored short sleeved polo shirts, I figured it was just another card for another product. But as soon as I opened it, I noticed something a little different about this piece of advertising. Could it be the men seemed, I don’t know…really enjoying one another’s company a little more than in most ads? Did they resemble older International Male models a little too much? (Read that blog here…Remember the International Gay...I Mean, International Male Catalog?) What was it about this card? As I always look at the pictures first (with any book or anything) it just made me a bit quizzical. Then I realized, oh my God, this is a gay, gay, gayer than gay advertisement. Just For Men – Haircolor for men (yeah, gay men that is) – Don’t Get Me Started!

Here’s the honest to God text verbatim from inside the folded card (in italics) and my comments after…

Stay In The Game

Gray hair can hide who you really are. Just For Men Haircolor brings back the natural-looking color you had before you started going gray. With Just For Men, they’ll see the real you. Oh really? They’ll see the real you? But isn’t the real you gray? So if you’re all dyed up like a pump that goes with a bridesmaid dress, how are they going to really see the “real” you? (Here’s a tip…to get to see the real guy – when they take off their pants, which they’ll do if you’re doing your job right at all, find the driver’s license…you get the real age and usually a chuckle from the photo. Of course if they don’t put their wallet in their pants because it will make only one of their cheeks look like a bubble butt than you’re out of luck. And if they carry their wallet in their man purse well then, you’re just on your own.)

It’s Romantic

He likes it when you make a little extra effort to look great for him. Getting rid of gray says you take care of yourself. Absolutely...NOT. A little effort is taking yoga to be more limber or getting your hair cut the way they like it instead of the way you like it. And by all means, never mind that you’re six hundred pounds, just dye your hair cause that says you take care of yourself.

And finally…

It’s Says You’re One Of The Guys

When your gray is gone, you fit in better with everyone. With Just For Men you look – and feel – like you really belong. Well, that’s it! Yes, I guess if you only hang around with people twenty years your junior, then yes, I guess you “fit in better with everyone” you’re currently hanging around with if you don’t have any gray in your hair but for those of us who actually date and hang around with people close to our age (the real one), gray is just fine, thank you very much.

I need a product telling me that I’m too old to be gray (or gay as it were) about as much as teenage girls need another airbrushed photo of a model on a cover of a magazine proving that no matter how they starve themselves they’ll never be thin or pretty enough as the model that was created electronically. Go ahead, please feed on the gay growing up fear to sell your hair dye like a piranha because you know what? We’ll all buy into it as much as everyone who ever bought a Chia Pet, Ginsu knives or The Clapper.

Come on gays, haven’t we all had just about enough? I mean, I don’t care if you dye your hair (God knows I did for awhile) but just because you don’t dye you’re hair doesn’t say you’re not one of the guys, in fact it tells me that you’re confident in who you are, what you have to offer the world and are probably someone I’d want to know as opposed to the deluded men who dye their hair too much, tan too much and have all the muscles but sound like gas is escaping whenever they speak.

Trust me when I say, I wasn’t picked for any team at any time so the last thing I need now that I’m in my forties and going gray is an ad telling me I’m not one of the guys. I heard enough of that throughout my academic life and beyond. It’s like the Paul monologue from A Chorus Line when he says, “See when I quit school, what I was doing was trying to find out who I was and how to be a man. You know, there are a lot of people in this world who don’t know how to be men. And since then, I found out that I am one. I was looking for the wrong thing. I was trying to be butch.”  So you’ll excuse me Just For Men, if I don’t equate having dyed hair as a sign of “being one of the guys.”

I get it, I’m taking it too seriously or I should be excited that a mainstream company has advertising for the gays. Well, perhaps I am taking it too seriously but forgive me for not getting all goose pimply over the fact that this company has a smart (and most likely gay, gay, gayer than gay) marketing executive. Good for them for getting money out of us but they need to remember that some of the people they’re marketing to understood a long time ago that no matter how much we worked out or dyed our hair, we were never going to be carded at a bar again and are okay with it. And besides, it throws the whole balance of the gay culture off. If the “Daddies” are going to dye their hair to look like the “Twinks” then no one is going to know who to go to when it comes time to be “taken care of” in the style they’d like to grow accustomed to.

I don’t know, I guess it’s just another step in us gays trying to gain acceptance (from one another). So stay in the game, be one of the guys, after all, it’s romantic dying your hair. (Or so they say) Just For Men – Haircolor for men (yeah, gay men that is) – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Brothers And Sisters (And Sobbing) Season Finale – Don’t Get Me Started!

If you’re someone like me who has a Tivo filled with programs and have not yet watched the season finale of the show Brothers And Sisters (Or God Forbid, don’t care about this show, you know you should, right?), take this time right now to go read one of my blogs from my archives. For the rest of you, I don’t know about you but I couldn’t take it, it was a three or four hanky affair. Brother And Sisters (and sobbing) Season Finale – Don’t Get Me Started!

Now as I’ve said before, I’m a crier. I don’t care if it’s Maury reuniting loved ones who haven’t seen one another in years or a coffee commercial at Christmas, I just lose it. Thus the reason I can no longer watch Extreme Home Makeover, it dehydrates me. (Read that blog… I Detest Cheap Sentiment - Don't Get Me Started!) Again I say, if you don’t know anything about Brothers And Sisters or haven’t watched the finale stop reading cause I’m going into details.

Now I started watching this show from its first episode. Sure, I had read it had a gay character so of course that gave it a space on the Tivo automatically (sort of like my guy always talks about the show, “Julia” with Diahann Carrol – his relatives would call one another and say, “Look there’s a colored woman on TV! And she isn’t a maid!”) We gays tend to get the same way about shows that have gay characters but I have to say that more than the whole “it’s got a gay character” thing, I watched it for Sally Field. I know it’s an old joke but “I like her, I mean, I really like her.” I love her so much I find her damn Boniva ads interesting and have on more than one occasion wondered if I need it too (it’s for bone loss in women) just because Sally Field is so damn convincing.

I have no delusions about this show. This is a nighttime Soap as Dallas and Dynasty were before it. It has so much damn drama that it took them having five kids and an illegitimate one just to spread all the drama legitimately and evenly among its characters. I have to say that the gay character is the floundering one that they don’t seem to know what to do with so he lost his appeal early on to me. He’s another one of those, “I’m gay and have hang ups so it’s okay that I’m a whore but I’m a lawyer so that should make everything all better.” Believe it or not, and I know this doesn’t make for good drama but there are gays out there who are actually successful in their careers and have successful personal lives too. (Shocking, right?) What gets me about all of this is that you know the show’s creative team is as gay as gay can be so wouldn’t you think they would try a little harder to break through the stereotype; just a little? And now the big gay finale shockers (last chance to stop reading) Kevin makes out in the pantry with the senator’s brother who he previously botched a date with while the help continues to cut the crudités for Kitty’s engagement party. Not to be out done by this, we soon find out that the senator’s brother is also a Methodist minister. And again, the conflicted Kevin (both in the character and the writing for the character) stumbles his way through a “You work downtown and I work downtown, maybe we could have lunch.” But more than this gay lack of the edge of your seater (as the Kevin character has seen more action than Alicia Bridges sang about in the 70’s – you know, “Action I got so much to give. I want to give it; I want to get some too…whoo ooh!”) is the whole Brokeback Saul storyline, when Michael Nouri shows up (honestly haven’t cared about him since 1983’s Flashdance) proclaiming that he has divorced his wife and is gay. Telling Saul this we get in an instant that they shared more than friendship back in the day but just in case you’ve missed your phallic moment for the month, Nouri puts his hand on Saul’s that just happens to be on the neck of a wine bottle. Come on gayers, you don’t know how to write for the other gay characters (one of the reasons I think ol’ Kevin has had a Pride Parade full of people in his bed since the start of the season), don’t make another one. God love you writers, figure out what to do with the Kevin character and then you can have another gay one, okay? It’s a little like, finish what’s on your plate before you go in for seconds.

The one character who has come around both in his life and storyline is Justin. And as the youngest of the siblings (of Sally Field and Tom Skerritt – whom I’ve loved ever since he played Shirley MacLaine’s husband in the ballet blockbuster, “The Turning Point”) heads off on the escalator at the airport to report for duty in Iraq all I could think was, “Gee, I hope he takes a bullet early there so that he can come back for his rehabilitation.” The show needs him too much to send him to Iraq now. You know, they can come up with something brilliant and never done before say, him being blinded and he has to come home all angry but at least we get him back in the show interacting with everyone. Just please dear God, don’t do the whole “live from Iraq” Justin.

The rest of the characters manage to make their usual dialogue good enough to keep you interested and although there was no real cliff hanger here, the Walker clan ends up like we met them, dramatic but interesting. So no need to ask if I’ll be watching again next year, I will be. I can only hope that they don’t do what every other show seems to do which is on a week, off three. I’ve got a crazy idea, how about some producers and writers who know what’s going to happen to the characters ahead of time so they give us a whole season uninterrupted? Am I the only one who remembers television seasons that coincided with the entire school year? (As I always say, another blog for another day) For those who read this and don’t watch the show, I’m sure they’ll be re-playing the whole season before it comes back on next year so catch up people, will you? Then you’ll see what all the drama is about. Brother And Sisters (and sobbing) Season Finale – Don’t Get Me Started!

 
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Trust Me, Clean Out Your Sock Drawer! – Don’t Get Me Started!

So I had been putting it off for weeks but finally I changed over my closets from the winter clothes to the summer clothes. You see, here in Vegas we only have those two seasons really. It’s all ready close to 100 degrees so it was time to put the cashmere away under the bed until next season. There was at least one huge garbage bag of clothes that went to Goodwill and so I felt as though I was really accomplishing something. Then in my cleaning frenzy it occurred to me that in the eight years of living in Vegas, I don’t think I’ve ever cleaned out my sock drawer. Sure I’ve bought more socks and I’ve even thrown some out along the way but a whole take everything out, throw stuff away and put stuff back in, I’ve never done it. Trust me, clean out your sock drawer – Don’t Get Me Started!

For you, it may not be a sock drawer, it may be something else like the top of a closet or under the bed but trust me, we all have these dark secret places where we continually put stuff in but nothing ever comes out. It’s a little like the Hotel California that the Eagles sang about.

For me it was my sock drawer. There were some socks in there that I don’t even remember buying and I would make a pretty good bet that they never even made it on my feet. Some were from years and years ago when I was obsessed with matching my socks to my suit or pants color (no, I did not say pantsuit!). So there were pairs that only went with certain things. It’s like my guy is always saying to me, “You have outfits, not clothes.” Is it my fault I was raised on garanimals? (I just looked it up online and I can not even believe they still make these clothes…here you go… http://www.garanimals.com/ ) For those four people who don’t know what garanimals were/are, they were a clothing line designed to help kids pick out their own outfits. All the pants with the monkey on them went with the shirts that had a monkey on them. Oh, how I loved these clothes at an early age. But as we see, it kept me making “outfits” instead of really learning what pieces you can take from several different places and put them all together beautifully no matter how much I watch What Not To Wear on TLC. Let’s face it, I’m still looking for the lions to match up.

When I got everything out of the drawer, (unlike a gay bar) the first ones to be thrown out were the singles that had managed to sneak in and just lay around at the bottom of the drawer for far too long. The next ones to go were the ones that I had worn into the ground so they had holes yet still there were times when I would wear them. Then there were the ones that I have no idea how they got there…the thin, silky, over-the-calf socks in green with a pattern up the calf (Had I gone through an Italian phase I don’t remember?). And finally when everything was thrown away and the drawer was looking so ready for its close-up, I thought, “Shit, now I have to do the underwear drawer.”

You see this whole spring cleaning bullshit is just that, bullshit. They don’t tell you when you start with one drawer you’re going to be spending the rest of your day looking at every article of clothing you have wondering whether you’ll ever get into it again, why you ever bought it, if you can live without it and why you would ever buy let alone wear turquoise and orange elastic underwear unless you had the tights and cape to go with it and were saving humanity.

There were some, let’s just say, “Scary” things in the underwear drawer that don’t need to be discussed here but I’ll just say there was plenty of stuff from my youth that simply had to go so you can just let your filthy minds run rampant. I had no idea half of that stuff was in there and was amazed to find AA batteries that were outdated by at least five years in there. We all know that’s where you keep batteries and bow ties, right, in the underwear drawer?
  

The thing about cleaning is that while it’s cathartic to a certain extent, once you start you can never be finished with it. You see, I did two drawers and a closet and yet as I’m typing this, the top of my desk is so filled with crap that I want to kill myself so I feel as if I accomplished nothing. There’s a part of me that really just wants to get out garbage bags and throw everything out or maybe put the whole “lot” on EBay like that woman did. Did you hear about her? She decided that she needed to get out from under everything that she had in her house and start fresh so she put her whole house of stuff on EBay. The last time I checked, she had a bid for like $200 and her reserve bid was $1,500.00. No, I couldn’t put it on EBay, I’d be afraid I would end up like her, not only did she want to get rid of it but the world was telling her that her shit wasn’t worth anything. My self esteem isn’t in a good enough place at the moment to handle all of that stress too.

So I’ll do my best to make my way through the rest of my crap because when you think about it, we accumulate so much stuff that it’s really unbelievable and most of it is shit that we don’t need, want or even remember wanting. So while it may be scary, I’m telling you that you need to start somewhere. Trust me, clean out your sock drawer – Don’t Get Me Started!

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And I Am Telling You…You Men Shouldn’t Be Singing Dreamgirls! – Don’t Get Me Started!

I don’t care that Rosie has had one on The View or that we should all stand proud behind our gay guy pals as they plaster all over YouTube with their renditions of And I’m Telling You I’m Not Going from Dreamgirls, I’m telling you it ain’t right and I can take no more of it. (And that goes for kids singing this song too – totally inappropriate.) And I am telling you…you men shouldn’t be singing Dreamgirls! – Don’t Get Me Started!

I have never been one to think that the “pronoun switch” that many performers do in order to sing a song that was created for the opposite sex is proper. In my opinion, if it’s written for a man, then a man should sing it and vice versa. I don’t want to hear, “Someday she’ll come along, the gal I love.” When it’s supposed to be, “Someday he’ll come along, the man I love.” Do you mean to tell me that there are not enough songs in the universe? Couldn’t you find something else to sing that is say, more appropriate?

And then there are the gays (God love us) who don’t change the pronoun and love singing, “And all because of the man that got away.” But times have changed, we get it, you’re gay but you’re singing a woman’s song my dears and unless you’re doing Judy at a Palm Springs drag club at 3am complete with the over-the-top Judy palsy mannerisms from the movie A Star Is Born, I’m just not buying. It’s not shocking or inventive it’s just something I’m not interested in and don’t get why anyone else would be, frankly.

But in a recent search for YouTube clips for the site I was simply amazed at the amount of people who post themselves on YouTube singing THE song from Dreamgirls and how many of them are men. I don’t care if you actually sound good singing the song or you’re black, white or albino (although most of them are white boys trying to sing that funky music) you just need to stop it right now. Most of you are doing impersonations of Jennifer Holiday. I thought we all got over that when Sam Harris channeled Patti LaBelle on “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” in the 80’s on Star Search. Boys, boys, boys, we’ve been there, seen it and please dear God, can’t we get past it?

As I’ve said before, I have never understood why some gays find it attractive or funny to become a cartoon version of a black woman in their mannerisms. All the “Girl, you know what I’m saying” with the head bobbing and arms a flailing just grates on my last nerve. I would get it if that’s just who you are as a person but these mannerisms are put on and well, yuck. I can hear some of you six foot, seventy pound white boys now, “Girl you know you just be a hater cause you ain’t got no pipes to be singing so good.” I’m not a girl, I’m a man and I’m not trying to be mean or bitchy, I’m just really begging you to stop embarrassing yourself and every man, woman, child and decent drag queen in the universe.

Someone has got to put a stop to this and it may as well be me. But just in case you aren’t convinced….watch the following YouTube videos… And I am telling you…you men shouldn’t be singing Dreamgirls! – Don’t Get Me Started!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxe6QuMU370

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRexSeidRF0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zy9KkdVnmg4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HClpf6YbZ3I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJvIOWYK7xo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9mMr4awxdc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sY1PRuOSP4M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZbpDnJ0wIE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbaruWlfHqc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_tntTFHFEI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRhGA8thxD8

However boys, if you must bellow it out…please do it as part of your own space, part of your own time…here’s your accompanist…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqBpH_4wxmk

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What Do We Leave? Nothing Much…Only Dinner Theatre – Don’t Get Me Started!

For those avid fans of this blog prepare yourselves as before I even begin this blog I all ready know that it will read very differently than most of my blogs. You see, as I said on the gay, gay, gayer than gay page about myself, the piece of myself I show in my blogs is only one verse in a song that has many verses and choruses. I worked and met my guy at a dinner theatre in Delaware. We went show to show to show for eleven years at that theatre – rehearsing one show while performing another show. I started as a performer and by the time I left I was working in marketing for the theater, directing, choreographing, creating musical revues and still performing for the producers in the shows. It was the closest I think I may ever be to being my ideal, George M. Cohan (the role I played my senior year in high school in the musical made famous by Joel Grey), they called him “the man who owned Broadway.” The theater closed its doors this year and while it was sad and strange to be so far away when it closed, it was even stranger to hear that last week they auctioned off the lights and almost everything that wasn’t nailed down. Not to get too Jewish on you, but it feels like that scene from Fiddler On The Roof when the Jews are being kicked out of their homes in Anatevka. What do we leave? Nothing much…only dinner theatre – Don’t Get Me Started!

There are places and people that come into your life when you least expect it and impact your life so greatly that you don’t realize it while it’s happening. Maybe you never fully understand their impact but once you’ve been away from it for at least eight years (as I have now) gaining a little perspective, you at least realize how much it all meant and means to you. You understand how much you travel with it in your heart and soul every day and how it made you part of who you are today. Some people will say it was a building, period but for many who have had similar experiences somewhere they’ll understand that that “building” wasn’t a house for shows, memories, love and friendship, it was a home (albeit a dysfunctional home) where all those things took place and more, where I always felt like family and like a childhood home that gets sold or demolished, it will be strange and heart breaking to never stand in the building again.  

It wasn’t Broadway, very few of us who start on the journey to make it there make it anywhere but I did make it in this dinner theatre. So what that it was Wilmington, Delaware and I would never win a Tony for my work? I was part of the fabric of this place where people brought their families, laughed, applauded and sometimes were moved to silence by a scene or song. Like a lot of things in life when looked back upon, I took it for granted more than I should have perhaps but the good news is that I did everything I wanted and needed to do while I was there. I got to do a lot there professionally but more importantly, I got to meet the man whom I’d share my life with and create lifelong friendships that last until this day. Sure there are some people we don’t keep in touch with or that have fallen out of our lives but there are some very important relationships that will never fade. To wax poetic, as they say, for just a moment, it’s like the end of A Chorus Line when the lights go out on “the line” kicking to symbolize that there is no end, somewhere there’s always a chorus kicking and that’s how I’ll remember the theatre and its people…they’re there somewhere…maybe not in that building anymore but the moments in my heart are frozen forever, indelibly.

As I was talking to one of my dearest friends about the auction and she was telling me how the “Braille curtain” – the main stage drape that would go up in a scalloped pattern like the icing on the side of a cake (funny I should reference a cake as the theatre was The Three Little Bakers founded by a trio of brothers who were acrobats in vaudeville who started a bakery when one of them broke their back forcing them out of show business and then eventually they built the dinner theatre, getting them back into the show business while still baking). The curtain, which we were always told was a $20,000 curtain; went for some ridiculously low amount. We heard a lot about that curtain and its worth over the years and now it had apparently been sold to a theatre in New Jersey for very little. As my friend was telling me about it, my mind was racing wildly (per usual) and instead of allowing great sadness to envelope me, I did what I do…I said, “Well, I feel about it like I do when your puppy dies and your parents tell you that it’s gone to live on a farm. In my mind I want to believe that the curtain really just went to a theatre in Jersey where I know they’ll do awful community theatre shows behind it but the theater will be so happy to have gotten this curtain for such a song and they’ll work so hard on their awful shows and they’ll put those shows on (and they’ll be awful) but the curtain, like the puppy, will be happy because at least it’s in a theatre/farm. Well, in my mind anyway.”

I don’t think it’s wrong to romanticize our past (as long as we have some base of reality somewhere in our lives). I know therapists may not agree with me but for me it works. I’m glad I wasn’t there to see the people walking through the theater as the auctioneer said, “How much for the grand piano?” I want to think of a woman I worked with for years who played Aunt Eller in Oklahoma standing on a bale of hay auctioning everything off like they auction the girls’ hampers filled with lunch at the box social scene in the musical. “Come on folks, it’s all for the good of Scott’s sanity (or the school house as she says in the musical) we need to raise more money than that, gotta get enough for a nice big chimbley (chimney).”

At the risk of sounding like Nora Desmond from Sunset Boulevard (the musical of course), “everything’s as if we never said goodbye.” As long as I wasn’t there, as long as I didn’t see it happen, it’s as if I never have to say goodbye to that time in my life, the memories or the building. Besides, what’s a building compared to someone to share your life with (who shares a lot of your same memories) or really, really wonderful friends? In my head I was there at the auction and it’s a production of Fiddler On The Roof and we’re all standing around, all of us that ever worked there on the stage and we say then sing, “Well, The Bakers hasn’t been exactly the Garden of Eden. It’s true. After all what have we got here? A little bit of this, a little bit of that, some lights, a table, a curtain, a soft chair? Someone should have set a match to this place years ago.” What do we leave? Nothing much…only dinner theatre – Don’t Get Me Started!

 
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Damn You Post Office, I Just Bought Super Hero Stamps! – Don’t Get Me Started!

I get it okay, I get it that everything eventually goes up in price. I remember when my grandmother (Mom’s mom) lived with us and she would go to the grocery store. It seemed all she ever wanted to discuss when she got home was how much the price of cabbage or cucumbers (no, it wasn’t always about “c” words) had gone up in price and how outraged she was about the situation. At the time, I was like, “What’s the big deal?” You see, that was way before I learned about rage, disgust, indignation, shock and appall. (Yes, it was a simpler time for me.) So I was not surprised by the recent postal rate increase however, I can not even begin to believe all the new rules that are going along with the rate hike. Damn you post office, I just bought super hero stamps! – Don’t Get Me Started!

At first I just assumed that it was another increase so I got over it rather quickly and simply but then my mother went to mail some of our MikWright cards (if you don’t know about these AND haven’t bought them by now you must have been sick or in Europe…but here you go…buy them immediately… http://www.somelikeitscott.com/somelikefaves.html ) Apparently part of the whole new system is that it costs more to send something if it doesn’t bend in half. This is something I don’t get at all. So now you’re going to tell us that it’s going to cost extra if we don’t want our mail mutilated? If our mail can’t be flexible and qualify to join the cast of a Cirque de Soleil show so we should all suffer and pay more? Look, I know these are tough times but guess what post office, you’re going to think yourself right out of existence here with these kinds of ideas…who do you have working for you? The schmuck who invented New Coke?

Almost immediately I emailed my pal at MikWright to let him know about all this earth shattering news regarding the postage situation. His response was that of course he knew all about it and here’s how it explained it… The formula for the new postage rates equals something like e=mc2. If a letter ... first ounce .41 plus .17 for each ounce up to 3.3 ounces. anything over that is .80 first ounce plus the .17 per. if a "letter" is bigger than 6 1/8 inches x 11 then it is auto .80+ because it's considered a "flat" piece. Well guess what? I was never good at word problems. I don’t know what time the bus from Albany will get to Newark if it’s traveling at a speed of 40 miles per hour, has fourteen overweight people, two models and dog and the driver is an ex-convict and the carpool lane is out of the question. No, now I’m more confused than I ever was about the entire situation. And I don’t know about you but no matter what else happens to me in life I don’t want to be considered a flat piece. Anything but that, right? (Quickly, everyone, you have permission to clutch your pearls!)

Does the post office/government not get it that we are some of the least educated people in the world due to the lack of funding for education in the USA? I blame them for the lack of education I got in public schools that makes it impossible for me to figure this whole thing out. Shouldn’t they be trying to make it easier to understand? You know like computers, DVD players, Tivo and fast food worker training? “Click on the stamp to mail” that’s about what I can handle at this point in my life. I don’t know; the whole thing is causing undo stress on me so I may have to talk to a lawyer about the situation. (Okay just kidding but you know it had been about three paragraphs where I hadn’t said anything stereotypically Jewish and I have to get my quota in or risk being thrown out)

And perhaps I’ve just hit on something…it would seem to me that right after the post office finally got a decent Hanukkah stamp, a Hattie McDaniel (Mammy from Gone With The Wind) stamp, Judy Garland stamp and  Ella Fitzgerald stamp that suddenly these stamps simply weren’t “good enough” for the post office. Hmmm…well, that just about covers my life – getting rid of the Jews, blacks and gay icons on stamps. And what about that new Jamestown triangle stamp? (No boys, not a lick of pink on it, not one of the triangles that Hitler put on us and now we put on ourselves.) Am I wrong that Jamestown was the start of the stealing land from the Native Americans to form a more, well, you know, as whitey, white, white folk would say, “a more perfect union?”

The point is while all life around me is getting more and more complicated, I want mailing to be a simple experience dammit. I want to be able to mail my cards with me in drag at seven years old without having to wonder if I can still bend (I spent years as a dancer and yes, can still do a split – okay, it’s only on the left side but it made me more attractive, didn’t it?). I’m one of those people who still mails cards and letters so why not cater to me and those like me and just stop, wait a minute Mr. Postman. (You didn’t really think I’d get through the blog without a musical reference, did you?)

Oh I’ll go along with it and somehow figure out the whole equation that has become the “mailing experience” but it doesn’t mean I won’t be bitter about it. It doesn’t mean that I won’t curse the person who brought this upon me and well, oh, just damn you post office, I just bought super hero stamps! – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Another Gay Myth Exposed – Public Restrooms Are Not Hot – Don’t Get Me Started!

I know that George Michael would say something different and there are plenty of gay porn movies out there that seem to show bathrooms as the poor man’s gym hook up spot but I can tell you from personal experience that such is not the case. Prepare yourselves to delve into a world rarely talked about and read as I do it again, another gay myth exposed – public restrooms are not hot – Don’t Get Me Started!

The Piss and Moan club (now already I can tell that some of you boys are at the edge of your seat) well, sit back and sit up straight for God’s sake do you want to be a hunchback? Today I’m in the public bathroom where I work when suddenly the door slams open. I was in a stall but I hear this guy rushing in. The next thing I hear is, “AHhhhhh….Oohhhhhh….oh yeah, wooooo…” That’s right, here I had always been under the impression that to “piss and moan” meant to “bitch” when this guy was doing the real deal. It sounded like a bad porn movie and trust me when I say, this guy was just peeing. (That much I could see through the stall!) He had his head tilted back and he was in ecstasy over the peeing he was doing. This guy had to have been saving it up for years or else had one too many free beers while playing slots at one of the casinos on The Strip. (Think the original Austin Powers movie but less funny and with a lot more “oohing” and “ahhing.”) I was stunned and didn’t dare come out of the stall because I mean, what do you say, “Wow, you sure do get into peeing, don’t ya?” Is there anything appropriate to say? Does Hallmark or even my pals at MikWright make a card for such an occasion? I kept telling myself that the guy was passing a kidney stone or something and somehow it made me feel a little better. But not so much when he didn’t wash his hands, instead he finished off with a “woo hoo” a zip up and he was gone.

Then I began to think of the other odd occurrences and “habits” that make a bathroom so not gay hot. Now every female comedian has gone on about how men can’t seem to get their pee in a toilet bowl to save their life, what I can’t figure out is why the need to pee all over the seat? I mean, I get you might not lift the seat in a public bathroom but you’d think with all the sports oriented men out there that they would like to make two points by getting the pee in or at least a rebound after the first spurt doesn’t go in. I don’t know, maybe they’re going for three points from the key? (Am I dazzling you with my basketball jargon? I’m full of surprises, kids) You would think that from their competitive nature alone that their aim would get a little better instead of causing them to I guess say, “What the hell? I already missed the bowl let me just go ahead and decorate the seat in my pee!” Again, I know that there are some men out there who are so into all of this right now that they can barely get their flies undone fast enough but please people, know that this isn’t something all “the gays” are into and there are plenty of straight men who are into the peeing thing as a turn on big time.

One time I was in a public bathroom at an airport and there was a guy in the stall on his cell phone. For the life of me I can’t imagine being on your cell phone and taking a dump. (Well, let’s just say I can imagine it if you’re not talking and you’re phone is on mute) but this guy was holding an entire conversation! There was farting, grunting and I’m not sure but I think he sold all his Disney stock but finally he was finished I suppose as I heard him say, “Well, I gotta go, I’m getting down to the paperwork now.” I kid you not, this one I am not making up, I’m not embellishing and who in the hell would want to or need to in this case, I ask you? As I stood at the urinal I know that I just started looking around in shock, almost wanting to see if anyone else had heard all of this going on so that I wouldn’t think I was crazy. No one looked at me and who could blame them at an airport bathroom with a guy in a stall on a cell phone carrying on a conversation?

Finally there is the guy who goes into a stall to pee even though he’s going to be standing up either due to all the urinals being taken or some because I think they feel it’s more private…well it WOULD be more private if they would shut the damn door! (These guys must be straight because all gays pee sitting down – at least I had a female friend of mine convinced of that at one time. Yes, before it was on Will and Grace, way back in the late eighties. A female pal had a friend of mine over and me to watch gay porn as she had never seen it and was dying to watch it with us for some reason. Well, as my male friend goes into the bathroom she says, “Oh, I forgot to tell him that the seat doesn’t stay up on its own in that bathroom.” I said, “Suz, don’t worry, he’s gay, all gays sit down when they pee.” We had her convinced for days as she conducted a survey of every gay man we knew and we winked behind her head to get our fellow gays to agree with our story.) But here’s the deal, if you’re going to take the time to go into a stall, close the damn door. It is not a urinal…it has a door on it for closing. I will never understand these men who stand there peeing only to have every other man come into the bathroom, see all the urinals taken and then slam the door into their ass as they go into what they think is an unoccupied stall. Then having to mumble and say, “Hey sorry dude.”

Okay, wait a minute…maybe I’ve been wrong all along, that sounds exactly like a scene and line out of a gay porn film! Well, say what you will and God love your little hearts for being into whatever the hell you’re into, who am I to judge? (Well, we all know exactly who I am to judge…these blogs are filled with my judgments) but honestly, let me say for the most part, public restrooms are not like the ball room at a kid’s playground. Okay, let me re-phrase that…for most of us, bathrooms are used for their intended purposes and not as a gay hook up locale. (Notice I said MOST of us…you know who you are who feel differently) but for the rest of us gays, we need to let people know that contrary to certain celebs and stories they’ve heard it’s time to set the record straight…or at least defend our gay honor that we’re as dull as the straightees sometimes. Another gay myth exposed – public restrooms are not hot – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Pre-Boarders Are Ruining Everything For All Of Us! – Don’t Get Me Started!

May I simply say that I don’t care if you’re flying on a first class airline or you’re traveling (as I often do on my short hops to LA) on Southwest, there need to be some rules set down for all of the pre-boarders in the world in order for me to not completely lose my mind when it comes to air travel. Pre-boarders are ruining everything for all of us! – Don’t Get Me Started!

On a side note, I know that Southwest claims that one of the ways it can give you cheap fares is by not assigning seats but they need to just charge all of us the extra ten dollars and stop being the “bus” airline. Between having to time it 24 hours in advance (to the minute) to print your boarding pass online to having to get to the airport early so you’re in the front of your letter grouping, it’s all too damn much. Is it that much trouble to say, “Your seat is15B?” I think not. (To read another one of my classic Southwest experiences click here… Please, don't try to pick me up when I'm getting on a Southwest flight! )

And with Southwest it doesn’t really matter if you’ve managed to not only get an “A” for your flight and/or have managed to fight your way to the front of your group, there are the pre-boarders. Now these people range from the wheelchair bound to the Mormons and their fourteen children under the age of four that they’re traveling with on the flight. Whatever the reason, the reason for these people to pre-board is so that they have extra time to get on the plane because of their malady or their children no matter what the airline, right?

Explain to me why, oh why then are these afflicted and burdened people, the first people up and out of their seats upon landing? They’re hitting people in the head with their canes (that they’ve had to have the flight attendant store in the overhead bins originally but now seem just fine getting them out on their own), they’re throwing two of the children into their back pack and have a third by the hand with a roller bag and a Disney princess backpack and they are pushing, nay, shoving everyone out of their way to get off the plane. Believe me when I say that we all can’t wait for them to get off the plane either but then something amazing happens. As soon as they get past the actual plane itself and the flight attendant has said goodbye, they stop dead in the area right outside the plane, blocking everyone from walking the hall to the gate and airport itself. Here is where they stand waving their cane waiting for the wheel chair attendants or they decide that Jenny has to have her sippy cup immediately. They stop dead and the rest of us who waited for them to get on the airplane are now waiting again, except this time we’re trapped and we don’t know why. We’re trying to get all our crap, turn on our cell phones, answer an email on our Blackberry and we’re stopped dead, trapped on the plane for no apparent reason.
 

We’re fighting like crazy with everyone in a three row radius to keep our position. You know, like you have been the entire flight with the arm rest. You think, “If I go to the back of the arm rest with my elbow then they’ll have the front” but just then you sneeze and in those mere moments when you politely cover your nose and mouth, you’ve lost your ground and you’re stuck with no arm rest for the rest of the flight, sitting there like a penguin with your arms glued to your side, staring up wondering if you had to would you be able to pry your arms up to reach the picture of the flight attendant. Chances are you wouldn’t be able to; so you sit there wondering what it will be like when the flight is over and you have the use of your arms again. Some would say that they use these moments as an acting exercise in case they ever need to do this on stage somewhere but the rest of us just sit there bitterly waiting for someone to make a move and allow us to get back our position on the arm rest. But that’s behind you now as you think you’ll be deplaning when in actuality you’ve got at least five more minutes of hell being closer to people you don’t know since that orgy in the 70’s that you barely claim to remember anyway because you think someone slipped you mushrooms.

The person across the aisle from you managed to get his bag out of the overhead bin and edge you out just ever so slightly but it’s enough to make you have to recoil into your row and do the bowed head pose (making you look like Igor from the Frankenstein films) while still trying to keep one foot in the aisle to at least manage to stay in front of everyone from across the aisle in seats “E” and “F.” (It’s like Twister without the dots, fun or anyone you’d want to reach for left foot blue with ever.) Finally, much like coming out of the Lincoln Tunnel, you’re free and there they are…the pre-boarders bitching as the wheel chair attendant puts down the flaps for their feet, “I said young man, you need to be careful as I have some very delicate porcelain dolls from QVC that I brought my granddaughter. Mind what you’re doing there. Ach, you almost snapped off my good leg the way you put that flap down.” And the father of fourteen trying to keep his calm and collected tone saying, “Now come on kids, we discussed this before we left, you’ll have to just ask Jesus to grant you patience until we get to the rental car place for the mini van.” Suddenly I find myself asking Jesus for patience too and we all know that he’s not someone I have never met nor do I have a chance of meeting.

With the terrorists, the pint sized only personal hygiene products we’re allowed to take on planes and the fact that we’re an obese nation trying to force ourselves into seats made for models, air travel is hard enough without these pre-boarders. So here’s what I’m thinking. I’m thinking that there needs to be a new rule. If you pre-board then you have to be the last ones off the plane. You don’t get to jump up and act as if there’s nothing wrong with you once the plane has landed, you just have to sit there while those of us who spent way too much time jockeying for position stare at you as we pass and smile a little smile that says, “Thought you were pretty foxy did you?” in our best Wicked Witch Of The West voice that runs through our heads. No getting the cane out of the overhead bin almost decapitating half of the left side of the plane, no rushing to get “teddy” for your two year old, no, sit there in silence and allow the rest of us to get off the plane. Wouldn’t that be a wonderful thing? But unfortunately, it’s not reality. Pre-boarders are ruining everything for all of us! – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Web Commenter Or Tormentors? – Don’t Get Me Started!

I don’t know how many of you read the comments that people post on the Internet for this article or that article but I am constantly amazed at the level of all the nasty comments people post on websites and articles. Thank God I don’t have to deal with this on my site (no doubt because my site is so damn high brow that the people reading have impeccable taste). If you haven’t looked at the comments people post on articles, I encourage you to click that button and be amazed just how angry and nasty we all seem to be as a species. Web commenter or tormentors? – Don’t Get Me Started!

Recently I’ve been reading a lot on the web about the Anna Nicole movie, Rosie leaving The View, you know, all the really important news that makes a difference in the world (well, in my life it does anyway). And any blogging 101 book or article you read tells you that you need to post “relevant comments” with links to your site on other articles and blogs to increase your own readership. And as I’m constantly looking to “spread the gospel according to Scott” I have taken to leaving a comment here or there and I’m never NOT amazed at the comments I see.

If these comments become THE record of our civilization (not to get too Twilight Zone on you) we’re in serious trouble. We will look like some of the dumbest and angriest people ever to step foot on any planet. First of all you notice immediately that no one can spell. And I’m not talking about “I” before “E” here people. I’m talking about comments you have to read three or four times just to get a sense of what they were trying to go on about in the first place. I’m also shocked to see the amount of people who don’t finish a complete thought much less use punctuation. Blame it on the texting (See my blog about the texting bee Screw The Spelling Bee Compete In The Text Off! ). What I guess I’m the most shocked and appalled about is all the hate. I mean really, really hateful things being said.

If you read anything about Rosie leaving The View, you’re bound to come across at least a zillion comments that have nothing to say about her as a person on a show, the job she’s doing or anything else, it’s all “god ridnace to the big f$%*ing dyke hore” (yes spelled that way). And isn’t it funny that these people will have no problem using the word, “dyke” and yet the sensitive souls that they are use symbols to represent the word fuck? Just what the fuck is up with that I have to ask? In a word, these people are morons.

And just who are these people anyway? I mean they’re commenting at ten in the morning, they’re commenting all through the day and sometimes in the middle of the night. In my mind, I see them sitting in their darkened rooms, lit only by the light of their computer monitor and their television (that is running simultaneously) semi-watching the technology hour (for eight hours) on QVC. They’re sitting in the same sweat suit that they’ve had on for six days without showering and they’re waiting for someone to respond to the fourteen windows they have open on their computers with either an instant message from half way across the world or send in a comment on their comment so that they can respond with some more illiterate hateful gibberish that ends with “LMAO.” Getting thirsty they grab a soda out of the mini frige they bought on EBay that is right by their desk (made of a board and plastic milk cartons). The frige is making the sound of a car without a muffler and the only other sound you hear is their two hamsters running on their wheels, hoping that “the commenter” will look up and realize they can’t keep this up for much longer without some food, water and a change of the poop covered paper under their cage that you can barely read, “Colin Powell Resigns” on. As they type away on a computer keyboard that has long lost the actual letter decals, they sip some more Diet no brand soda while sending another six messages about Rosie filled with hate. (All spelled wrong.)

I know; I have one hell of an imagination, right? But for my own sanity I have to believe that these people have little to no sanity themselves to be writing such hate for what I call NAR (no apparent reason). I don’t want to think about them sitting in Starbucks on their new laptop, having just finished their thesis for their Masters degree and surfing online as they wait for their non-fat sugar free latte, sprinkling the web with their hateful comments like the candy sprinkles the barista is putting on their drink. No, say it isn’t so, say these people aren’t civilized or have ever had any formal education. But even as I write this I’m afraid that while the hate writers may not fit the obsessed illiterate persona I created above nor the “latte” description, they may fall somewhere in between those two descriptions. They may be the people on line with us at the grocery store, they may be the people who work in the cubicle next to us, they may live down the street sending their messages of hate out on the Internet in what seems as though complete anonymity giving them a sense of power they can’t seem to obtain in or over their own lives. Whoever they may be, it doesn’t make the comments less hurtful or awful.

You have to wonder what’s next and why we’re all so angry, don’t you? I mean, rare is it that you’ll find a positive comment unless it is someone defending and pledging their undying love for a celebrity that they waited fourteen hours in the rain to watch get out of their limo and they caught a strand of hair as they rushed into their hotel that the stalker built a shrine around in their home. And here’s the deal, even if we are angry (which I am a lot) at least I have spell check on my computer and know how to complete a sentence. Let’s face it, we’ll never get rid of hate but can we at least send our messages of hate with decent grammar? Is that asking too much? At least from people who comment on websites? Apparently it is too much to ask. Web commenter or tormentors? – Don’t Get Me Started!

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International Gay…I Mean, International Male (The Catalog) – Don’t Get Me Started!

I know this will shock many of you (as it has shocked me) that for years (yes, years) I have not received an International Male catalog. I almost thought they must be out of business. For those six people who are reading my blogs that are not gay my mother just sighed and said, “Is there something the matter with you that every blog has to be about the gays. Honestly, you know, not everyone wants to hear about that, you know? You know, gay doesn’t mean “happy” anymore.” Well for those of you who need the reference go to www.internationalmale.com to see what all the fuss is going to be about. You would think that having been featured in The Advocate and being on www.outzonetv.com that I would automatically get this catalog but alas I haven’t received it for years (and to tell the truth, I haven’t missed it). But the other day as I was taking out my mail from its box looked at the various bills and catalogs I thought, “Who is this gay with the great package in my mail? Oh (realization) I must be getting the International Gay…I mean, the International Male (The catalog) – Don’t Get Me Started!

For as long as I can remember (which is pretty far back) the International Male catalog was the one catalog that every gay man not only got but knew every model in the book. I mean, how many catalogs do you know where they do a feature story inside about the model on the front page? A story that includes things like, “He likes water sports and isn’t afraid to hold hands with the PERSON he’s dating at the moment?” trying every way possible to allude to the model being gay by stating that they had a “person” and not a woman in their life. These catalogs were (and perhaps are) the only private gayness you can have publicly in your mailbox.

Not long after the International Male catalog came out they discovered that they needed to get some gravy on their meat and potatoes that they normally displayed so they created the Undergear catalog featuring their signature underwear. Now the underwear featured in International Male was usually only a few pages that contained a groin and six pack in a pair of briefs that only approximately six people in the world could wear and look like anything. More than the underwear were the ENORMOUS “packages” that were in the underwear. I don’t know if these boys tucked, pulled up or just wrapped a twist tie from an old sandwich bag (with no Ziplock) around their business but the crotches seemed to be stuffed more than a ballet dancer with size 14 shoes. It was obscene and we all loved every minute of it.

I remember a dear friend of mine’s mother used to deliver mail for a living. Well one day we got on the subject of the whole crotch thing in this catalog and she was telling me how she would deliver the mail and some people would come out to get their mail directly from her instead of waiting to retrieve it from their box (no comment). The older women on her route would laugh about the crotches in this catalog and ask her if she thought they were real. (You have to wonder what the husbands were like that received this catalog – wink, wink, nudge, nudge, down low) She asked me on more than one occasion about the crotches and I told her that I didn’t know but from personal experience, it didn’t matter how much I tried to bake it, roll it, “sculpt” my groin area with a “T” there was no way it looked like that, even on a good day.

But I digress. I don’t know what these models are paid but I find it shocking (and more than a little distressing) that they have the same damn models in the same damn clothes that they’ve had for the last twenty years. At first I was taken aback (perhaps because I haven’t seen one of these catalogs in so long) that I was not greeted on page two with the same guy with the 80’s hair in the long trench coat with the naru collar and the boots pulled up over the black tucked in jeans. No more did I see the abdomen with the veins moving up the stomach that was flatter than an Ihop pancake with the “bootlegger” underwear – a pair of underwear that incidentally could never be worn under clothes, think boxer brief with a nautical sized drawstring around the waist. No, I was greeted by new, younger models that seemed to not have that same tongue in cheek (as opposed to other places) smirk as they modeled a skin tight shirt with a silver lame’ dragon going up over the left nipple.

And so I passed the quarter page spreads of supposed men in white gauze overalls with no underwear underneath (just who the hell is buying this crap for $78?) and the silver “cuffs” with leather and a skull for around your wrist; flipping furiously just hoping to see someone I knew. Knew? I didn’t know any of these people personally but when you see them every few months wearing the same clothes (for years), they become more familiar than the person in the cubicle next to you that hasn’t had a date since Corey Hart  wore his sunglasses at night. Finally I flipped a page, the heavens opened, Donna Summer moaned and there he was…someone I knew, wearing the same clothes from 1983 when I felt all tingly and naughty for seeing a catalog like this come to my house in my senior year of high school. And wait, I flipped the page and there was another model I hadn’t seen in years. Somehow it was comforting. I could imagine myself at 18 again thinking that you could say you were looking at this for fashion when you were really staring at the bulge that almost leapt off the page, as if in 3-D without funny glasses.

It didn’t take me long to start thinking about these men who were now way into their 50’s and how they must feel having been paid about $500 at the time for a picture in their underwear that was still appearing and selling skivvies this many years later. In my mind I want to believe that they have kept their chiseled features and their abs that you could count on like an abacus. But the reality is that they’re probably sitting there with their pot bellies cursing the day their agent Anton, ever told them to sign away their rights, shut up and pose. How must they feel as they look at these catalogs and stare at themselves frozen in time? Do they look at themselves in the mirror, sucking in their guts almost passing out to recreate their look of one leg up on the chaise and one hand on their chin? And what of all the “new” gays thinking that these men are still 18 as they appear in the catalog? Who would tell them what us “old” gays all ready know…”sweet dreams are made of these, who am I to disagree?” No, don’t tell them. Let the boys and the once boys continue to live in this glossy paged world of fantasy. Some of us will no better and as we see them stuffing their baskets with protein bars at Gelson’s in Beverly Hills, we’ll stop and wonder where we know these men from but not be able to place it and then as we get in our cars and turn on the radio to the “oldies” station, hearing Diana Ross singing, “I’m…I’m coming out!” it will occur to us who these older gentlemen are or were but we’ll simply turn up the radio, sing along and when we get back home we’ll look at them in their bootlegger briefs and imagine (as they do) that they are still 18 and in the International Gay…I mean, the International Male (The catalog) – Don’t Get Me Started!

 
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I lived in LA twice, or was it three times? I really, honestly can’t remember at this point. Anyway, I had to come to LA for the week on business and although it’s only an hour flight, getting up at four in the morning is still getting up at four in the morning. So already I was exhausted. Then it was thirty-five minutes waiting for the rental car. Finally I’m on my way and then it happens. About eight cars ahead of me there’s an accident. For the first few minutes, cars are trying to go to the right or the left and get around the accident but then it all comes to a complete standstill as the emergency vehicles start coming. There I was, going nowhere fast. Stuck in a traffic jam for over 45 minutes, only in LA – Don’t Get Me Started!

It’s 8:15am in the morning and the only thing to do is to call a friend on the east coast that I needed to return a call to, right? So there I am, chatting as I can see the top of the fire truck with its lights blazing just barely ahead of me. A few minutes later, here come the helicopters above so I know I’m stuck and one would think that everyone else (especially the native Angelenos) would understand that we were going to be here for awhile too. But no, as more emergency vehicles start coming to the scene, someone far behind me actually starts honking their horn. Honking their horn!!! Can you believe it? I mean, where in the hell does this jackass think anyone is going to go? It’s five lanes of parking lot at this point, no one is going anywhere and the whole honking of the horn thing made me want to find him and ask him if he knew he was such a jackass.

Suddenly I’m in the movie Nashville (Robert Altman film where they’re all stuck on a freeway going nowhere). People start getting out of their cars and are walking around the highway as if it’s a lovely spring day and what better to do on a spring day than walk a freeway? Ah, the smell of the fumes. Oh look, they have a Chevy Nova that hasn’t been washed in years. Ooh, my third cousin has a BMW like that one. And see that Land Rover really doesn’t have as much room as you would think it would have on the outside. It’s almost as if they’re shopping for a new car, well some of them. The rest of them suddenly look as if they’re from Close Encounters, walking like zombies toward the emergency vehicles as if they can’t help themselves. An overly amplified voice says, “Get back into your vehicles.” And the helicopters continue to circle. They’re from different news stations and the zombie people with their travel coffee mugs keep walking toward the emergency vehicles. This whole time I’ve been looking in front of me but something catches my eye and I look into my rear view mirror.

The woman in the old car behind me is sitting in her car and if she were a cartoon you would see fumes coming out of her ears. I see her twisting in her seat, slapping the steering wheel with both hands and then she’s dialing her cell phone. The next thing I know, she’s getting off the phone and getting out of her car. Now this is not all that shocking as several people are out of their cars at this point. But here comes the shocking part. She locks her car and then sits on the hood of her car. Now I have to laugh to myself. I mean who is stealing her car in the middle of this parking lot that used to be a freeway? Plus she’s sitting on the car so who would be able to not only steal the car while it’s sitting surrounded by other parked cars while she’s sitting on the hood? She crosses her arms and then uncrosses them. Next she’s headed back into the car. Now she has her hands on the steering wheel and her head is resting on her hands. Uh, here she goes again, she’s coming out of the car and she’s locking it. Now she’s just standing beside the car raking her fingers through her hair. She unlocks the car, locks it again, she unlocks it again and gets back in the car. This pattern seemed to repeat itself (almost in its entirety) time and time again. I mean, true, we were about fifteen minutes in to what would become a forty-five minute ordeal but all the throwing her head on the steering wheel and raking the fingers through her hair was dramatic enough but as long as I live I will never understand all the locking and unlocking of the damn car.

I may not be Maya Angelou but I know why the caged driver sings. I was trapped in my car and all I could do (after calling anyone and everyone it was decent to call at that hour) was to start to sing with Sheila E. who was on the radio. “She wears a long fur coat of mink even in the summer time.” Eventually the emergency vehicles start to go. The helicopters stop circling like hungry vultures and we’re suddenly on our way as if nothing happened. The traffic seems to go from zero to sixty-five in seconds. How some of those people got back to their car I’ll never know but more importantly, I never looked back to see if the woman behind me was either locked out or in her car with her head on the steering wheel when the traffic started up again. What a hell of a start to a day. Stuck in a traffic jam for over 45 minutes, only in LA – Don’t Get Me Started!

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As you all know, I’m off the coffee for the moment. However, I’ll be in LA all week on business this week so most likely I’ll be back on the “junk” by midweek. At any rate, I have been meaning to write about this for weeks but as my mind is constantly moving in at least a hundred directions, sometimes ideas go away and then come back when I least expect them. I was not thinking of my coffee fix when this came back into my mind, believe it or not, I woke up thinking, “Crap, have I ever written that blog about the life coach?” And so here it is…The life coach at Starbucks – Don’t Get Me Started!

I was in Starbucks for my usual Grande Americano when I see two young women sitting at a table. As I’m waiting for the barista to make my coffee, I can’t help but notice that one looks like every girl you ever knew from band in high school. You know, she has that unfortunate stringy longish permed hair that she leaves with the wet look like a bad Jerri Curl from the seventies and she has the plain Jane feel about her complete with the small glasses that do nothing for her face and seem exactly what Mrs. Beasley (Buffy’s doll from Family Affair) would have upgraded to eventually. As I subtly move in to get a closer look, there it is my senses were dead on once again. Around her neck is a thin gold chain with a charm on it and the charm (drumroll please…) is a tiny saxophone. Can I peg people or can I peg them? I can see her now on the field tilting her saxophone this way and that to keep up with the choreography and keep her glasses on as her band slaughters Kool and the Gang’s “Celebration”.

The other woman at the table is a petite black woman who looks all of about twenty-five. She is on the edge of her seat at everything Miss Band 1997 is talking about. I can’t help it, I’m intrigued, so I find something over in that general area to look at and I move over to hear some of the conversation. The band geek is a life coach, putting the young black woman through a series of surveys to find out about her.

Now for those of you who don’t know about life coaches, these are a relatively new idea and I just happen to have a friend who is a licensed one. They are a little like a therapist without the therapist prices but different from a therapist, they are honestly a coach. They help you to determine what you want to be when you grow up (even at my age), work with you to make a plan, ask you to make commitments to deadlines and then they check in with you to make sure that you’re playing by the play book you’ve created together and making the right plays. My pal who is a successful life coach in LA (although she’s been able to do nothing with me as the old saying is true, you have to want the help first, right? And I prefer to kvetch and blame the world) is completely certified and has helped several people. She is hip, has her finger on the pulse of just about everything and I don’t know anyone who would not be comfortable working with her or her knowledge of how to get you the help and incentive you need. But this poor life coach in Starbucks, I wouldn’t trust her to hand me a straw without breaking down in tears.

Life coaches I would hope have had some life experience themselves, right? You can tell this girl has not had any. She’s sitting there in her best Little House On The Prairie dress and you can tell that other than the one time the tuba player asked her out and stood her up, this girl has spent her life on the sidelines of the dance called life, a perennial wallflower. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying I want Courtney Love as a life coach but come on, there has to be something in the middle of these two extremes, yes?

As I waited for my coffee and listened more, it was a little like listening to my mother when she got a pack of tarot cards years ago. You know, those mystical fortune telling cards that tell you what your future will be, etc.? My mother bought a pack of these once with an instruction booklet but she could never remember what the individual cards meant so while she was doing your “reading” she would turn over a card and then have to look it up in the glossary. She would say you were going to have great fortune and then she would change her mind and tell you it meant the exact opposite because it was upside down or something. It was like having your fortune read by someone who doesn’t know the language and keeps referring to a phrase book that is fifty years out of date. It provided hours of laughs. But the thing is, this young black woman was not here for laughs, she was looking for advice and help.

I suddenly felt badly for both of these women. I mean, the band girl who thought she could be a life coach and the girl who thought she was being coached. I can’t imagine either of them profiting by this union. I wanted to call my friend in LA but thought it would offend her if I went on and on about the life losers who became life coaches. So I just got my coffee and left thinking, who would I want as my life coach? I thought and thought and thought. Who would be good for me? And the only person I could come up with myself. And yet, my life is a complete mess for the most part. Yes, I think I’d make a great life coach but after more thought, for someone else’s life. I mean, I love telling people what to do and I know what they should do, I just can’t implement it myself. Life coach, heal thyself, right? And then I thought, I wonder if the band girl brings all her clients here? She may not be good but she’s probably cheap and what’s more important? The life coach at Starbucks – Don’t Get Me Started!

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As a test of my own will and to see what all the fuss is about being decaffeinated, I decided that I needed to give myself a break from the grande Americano I have had just about every morning since the world began (or so it seems). And so I made the bold decision to pass my usual Starbucks by (with all my happy baristas waiting to welcome me like Norm from Cheers) and just go to work. I thought, well now, I’m not one of those people who are addicted to coffee, I can stop any time I want, I just don’t want to…stop <realization coming, wait for it…> (Argh, that sounds like every single person who has ever been addicted to something) I had no idea what this was going to be like at all. Day four of caffeine no more and Starbucks is still open – Don’t Get Me Started!

There was nothing hugely noticeable on the first day other than the fact that I was really sluggish and had to type everything over at least twice. Hmmm, I thought, must not have gotten enough sleep last night. By the afternoon I had a slight headache which I passed off as just another stressful work related symptom. And as I ended my day I have to say I was feeling mighty good about myself.

Day two and I couldn’t get out of bed. I dragged myself to the gym where I closed my eyes on the elliptical machine…yes I was literally falling asleep and doing cardio at the same time! I kept thinking, “Go faster so people will think you have your eyes closed because you’re really working hard, going for the burn.” And meanwhile at the same time my thoughts are drifting in a million different directions like just before you nod off at night, “Hmmm, Mr. Coffee with Joe Garagiola, I remember those commercials. Wonder why I have so many mugs, I never use them. What about Mrs. Olson what coffee did she used to sell…and who was Juan Valdez, I mean it had to be an actor, right? But did that poor actor ever get another job? Or maybe, I wonder if there really is a Juan Valdezzzzzzzzzz WAKE UP!” I knew this was going to be a very rough day for me. And so it was that this day I had to re-type things a good four hundred times. Emails went out that were so poor and tragically written that they didn’t even make sense to me on a second read. It would take another three emails to the person to make some sense of the first email I’d sent. At first I was thinking that it was everyone else but then I had to admit it, it was all me, I couldn’t write an intelligible sentence. 800mg of Motrin later and I still had a raging headache.

Day three and I was actually capable of lifting my head off the pillow. Wow, I smell grass, I smell France, I’ll put on new underpants! The first hour or so was okay and then I hit the wall. Oh not “the wall” that runners and athletes talk about, I mean, literally I walked into a wall. I guess I had misjudged the distance or where the opening of the hole of the open door was but regardless, I was eating wall. From that moment on the day was shot for me. I couldn’t really focus or make much sense of anything. The headache was really bad and I was jonesing for even a whiff of a coffee scented candle.

Today is day four and so far so good but anything could happen (and I’m sure that it will). Well, I just started this sentence three times so we could be in trouble people. The thing is that I was always one of those people who thought that it couldn’t happen to them. I don’t need it, I want it. We have an entire country of people saying the same thing (thus the reason for all our credit scores) but what has been amazing to me is all of the head games I’ve been playing with myself without realizing it. I don’t drink soda or really any other kind of beverage other than water so I figured that coffee every morning (albeit three shots of espresso) was just my drink and so what? Did I know that my body was craving it? No, it was a habit, wake up, get dressed, go to Starbucks and go to work. It was just part of my routine so it just happened as if I was on automatic pilot.

Should I blame Starbucks for their crack pushing baristas that are soooo friendly, know my name and have my drink started for me before I even get out of my little red Mini Cooper? It would be easy to do, right? You always blame the pusher not the addict, right? Those baristas with their dispositions bordering on the Stepford with their happy, happy times and attitudes saying, “Scott, really I know this may be too sweet for you but do you want to just try the triple sugar cookie, mocha, white chocolate frappaloolah? I won’t even charge you, okay?” And isn’t that classic pusher behavior, give them “a taste” for free and then they’re hooked on the junk? AHHhhh, get this Starbucks stuffed bear dressed in a monkey suit off my back! It IS the barista’s fault. Okay, well we know it isn’t but it would make it easier for me if I truly believed these people were all part of some insidious plan to take over the universe by getting us all addicted to a substance that made us their pawns.

Suddenly I have this image of a shirtless Charlton Heston (back when he was Moses, in shape and the studio kept us away from knowing just how nuts this guy was, I mean, is) running into the Starbucks with a half empty (yes, I see the world half empty, not half full – whatever) plastic cup (dome lid ajar being held on by the green straw – it was one of the frozen Starbucks drinks) screaming, “Starbucks is made from people!” If that really happened, I think everyone would just look at him and go back in line. And as the business man gets back in line behind the soccer Mom, we hear one of the baristas say, “Gee, I know someone who needs some more coffee!” As she gives her knowing wink amid the mist from the milk frother machine, everyone in line chortles gets their coffee and continues on with their day. Charlton is sitting at one of the outside tables at Starbucks sucking the remaining remnants from his cup. <We hear the sucking noise of plastic and very little liquid in the cup> his thoughts can almost be read, “Maybe it’s made from people but I don’t care, this shit is so good…mmm…mmm, just like a milkshake but with coffee. I think I’ll go buy another seven hundred rifles…and a shirt.”

I’m not saying I won’t ever have coffee again because I’m one of the few that not only like the smell of it but the taste of it. On the whole, I’m not a big flavored up coffee drinker except for the occasional peppermint mochas (which incidentally, are to die for). But for now, for today, I won’t have any coffee. I’ll greet each day anew and try to convince myself that I’m so much better without the coffee. I can really feel again when I’m off the hooch, I’m not as irritable, I’m nicer to co-workers, my spouse and my cats. I’m a downright freaking ray of sunshine! And all the while I’m wondering what would happen if I fed the caffeine beast today…what if I went to just a tall instead of a grande? No, must stay away. I thought I was getting better but maybe it’s not getting much better at all. I’m doomed. Day four of caffeine no more and Starbucks is still open – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Am I The Only Gay That Thinks McGreevey Is McCreepy? – Don’t Get Me Started!

I know that we’re all supposed to go running around with our pink triangle shirts and rainbow flags a flying to represent the unity of our gayness, supporting one another better than the 18hour bra supported Jane Russell back in the day but when it comes to ex-governor Jim McGreevey I just get a weird kind of, oh I don’t know, a sense that, hmmm, okay, am I the only gay that thinks McGreevey is McCreepy? – Don’t Get Me Started!

I remember all too well (like a moon landing or the day you got that bad perm your hairdresser talked you into) when Jim McGreevey came out stating he was a “gay American.” I remember being all kinds of excited that for whatever reason, we had our first gay governor coming out. It didn’t matter that the only reason he seemed to be coming out was because he was being blackmailed. And even part of that made him seem more honorable for standing against the blackmailer, losing the career he’d worked his whole life for and in the process also coming out to the world at large. Good for all us gays, right? Then it started…the supposed boyfriend was on the payroll, the supposed boyfriend claims he isn’t gay and was attacked by McGreevey and so on and so on. Still we gays have to stick together, right? So we all just sort of took the supposed boyfriend to be a closet case and we wondered what Mr. McGreevey would do next. Of course, it was to write a book. And not to be outdone, his wife has one out too.

I remember that my creepy feelings about McGreevey seemed to start almost immediately but I was able to squelch them down for the most part. That is until he was on Oprah. The first thing was that smile, it’s sort of a cross between a born again Christian and a Mormon smile. It says, “I always smile. Smiling will make people believe me. I believe me when I smile. The Lord walks with me. Gee, I’m glad that they can just sedate me now instead of giving me a full frontal lobotomy!” He kept using the word, “arrogant” about himself about the years of his “deception” to himself and everyone around him but really the more he talked the more it seemed to me that he was still very arrogant and loved himself a whole lot more than even his Australian sugar daddy could love him. The whole mansion and sitting on the lawn in their deck chairs just made me pukalicious to be honest. He seemed like an old southern queen who finally got to decorate a mansion with early American furniture and a sling in the basement.

Now the wife has come out with a book and she’s been on Oprah too. To be honest, both the McGreeveys make me ill. I mean, who could blame her for writing a book? She deserves to make money too. And if she wasn’t too old to be in the VH1 demographic, I’m sure that they would be offering her a reality series to find a man. You know, every week they would do competitions to prove how straight they were and how they deserved Dina McGreevey’s trust and hand. But here’s the deal, are these people writers? No. Of course they hire ghost writers to write for them. But who wants to read, “Day One - I got up. I made breakfast. Jim didn’t seem gay today.” “Day Five – Jim says he has something to tell me. There’s a press conference later. I wonder if I cleaned the strap on from last night.” Needless to say, I won’t be buying either book. Now perhaps I’d be singing a different tune if someone offered to pay a crap load of money for my story. But come on, if I want to read a novel about politicians in denial I’ll read a book about George W. Bush (no thank you).

When Dina McGreevey was on Oprah (trying desperately to mask her Jersey accent) she told of just how awful her experience was, kind of why she was smiling through the landmark press conference and that she really didn’t even know the man who had become Jim McGreevey. They asked him for a statement or if he had anything to say to his ex and in one of the more arrogant and ridiculous statements, he started it with something like, “Congratulations, you are sitting on one of the most famous couches in the world.” Who uses that as an opening line when you know that your ex-wife who didn’t know you were gay is on Oprah talking about her tell all book? This was his chance to say something of importance, not just a line that some speech writer wrote for him like, “I am a gay American” (Or “Mission Accomplished”). And he chose to be dazzled instead by his own notoriety and himself once again.

So good for McGreevey (I guess) he has the mansion, the man and the money. But at the end of the day, what I’m left with is a sense of a man who did whatever it took to get exactly what he wanted for himself above everyone else (no matter what the cost to the people around him that he claimed to love) and is still doing that today. Oh let’s make him a grand marshal of a parade and hold him up as some sort of example by all means because we gays can sometimes be so starved for some recognition that we’ll take anyone who says they’re gay and can call a press conference and make them our poster boy. Does anyone else think that perhaps the so called lover from the scandal might have been telling the truth? That McGreevey was as big a letch as some Catholic priests or that uncle in your family that your mother never let you be alone with because she knew better? Does anyone else get a little unnerved by that McGreevey grin? The dyed hair? The thinny thin thin appearance? Say what you will but as gay as I am I don’t think I can support this guy on that fact alone. He’s going to have to show me some more integrity for me to get on the parade float with him. Am I the only gay that thinks McGreevey is McCreepy? – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Before I get started I have to say that I have always considered myself bi-techual. I love gadgets and am great at making them work and even fixing minor issues (except for the fact that my DVD is currently only communicating with me in Spanish for some reason that I can’t change, a language I don’t speak). My brother is the Vice President in charge of Information Technology (IT) for a major pet supplies retailer. He is simply the best at helping me revive a dying computer or explain what that noise is in my car. He’s great and very helpful as are the IT guys at my company but this is the extent of the people I’ve encountered who actually know what they’re doing in the technical support side of businesses. Have you ever called technical support? – Don’t Get Me Started!

For those of you who are subscribers to the Some Like It Scott website, I apologize that you haven’t received any updates from me recently but the technical side of the site that allows me to send newsletters filled with fun and adventure for you has been down for over two weeks now.

For those of you who are not subscribers, you will not be allowed into my corner of hell. No, you’ll have to sit in the area designed by Jonathan Adler and smell his no sock but dress shoe wearing funk for the rest of eternity. Those of you who watched Top Design will know what I mean. (Or read the blog at If You're Wearing Dress Pants and Shoes PUT ON THE SOCKS MEN! ) So if you don’t want to fall victim of that fate…you must email me immediately with your email address, full name and any other information you think I can’t live without scott@somelikeitscott.com to become a subscriber. And now back to our story…

When I first called they told me that I needed to upgrade (translation - pay more) for the newsletter service as I was trying to email more subscribers than was included in my plan. And so I upgraded, supposedly. Then in a move that was about as shocking to me as the former New Jersey governor McGreevey’s wife coming out with a book (not very), the whole newsletter system went completely down only to be followed a few days later by disappearing all together from the site where I do all the editing to make things look pretty and send my updates to my subscribers. I have called every day and gotten someone different who assures me that it will most likely be fixed today or if not today in the next forty-eight hours. It has not been fixed.

But here’s what gets me, everyone from the supposed support center is from New Delhi or somewhere. I can’t understand them, they can’t understand me (and frankly when I hear, “deli” there better be a corned beef on marble rye with coleslaw and Russian dressing coming my way if you want to make me happy). They put me on hold and then come back saying things like, “Um…I am thanking you for the holding…ah…I am seeing you have called...and we have sent the problems to the specialist department…do you want to be holding to see if I can be finding out the status?” No, please by all means, keep giving me those canned bullshit stock answers that aren’t answers at all and that mean nothing to me over and over again, don’t talk to someone who might actually know something and give me real information. Lie to me, I love to be lied to, in fact, it’s one of my favorite things in the world. And again the Muzak plays. I try to improve my attitude and hum along all the while feeling my blood pressure going up so high that my ears are now bright red and my left eye is twitching like a boy toy whore at a sugar daddy convention. By the time the support person gets back on the phone I’m calm enough to sound calm enough. “I am thanking you for the holding” she says. Almost interrupting I say, “Yeah, I know all that. Now what information do you have for me?” She begins again (a little perturbed that I cut her off from one of her “sure to work with the pissed off” phrases from her manual) “Well, I am seeing that the specialists are not responding at this time but I am sure they are doing the working on this problem. You are not the only person with this problem sir and we do be apologizing for the inconvenience.” Okay, this always sends me through the roof. I don’t know if it’s because I’m the most selfish son of a bitch or what but don’t tell me other people are being screwed too as a way to make me feel better. It doesn’t make me feel better; it actually just pisses me off more. Just like I don’t want anyone around me telling me about the starving people of Somalia when I’ve just been rear-ended (boys, get your minds out of the gutter) and the ass wipe who hit me has no insurance. I don’t need a Kumbaya moment, I need a “kill boo yah” moment! I try to compose myself and ask, “So, where do we go from here?” She says, “Well…um…do you want them to be calling you when the situation is being resolved?” “If that’s all you can do for me, sure” I say resigned to the fact that there will be no answers or resolution on this call and that I will have to call again tomorrow. And then she does it, she ends the call with their stock phrase that makes me want to kick her until she’s dead (even though I don’t know her) “Sir, we are thanking you for calling today. If you are to be needing to call again, you can use your same ticket number, 628w3e0923434q2342343 to refer to when calling about this matter. Is there anything else I can be helping you with at this time?” Almost in a catatonic state I say, “No, thank you.” “Okay sir, thank you again for the calling and have a good day.” The phone slips from my ear like a drag queen’s old clip-on earring. Slowly it lowers and flops to its base. I’m officially spent. I can do no more. I’m thinking, “Why couldn’t I have gotten a gay to help me? They would have done more. Do you mean to tell me there’s not even one lesbian with a tool belt on there rebooting people?” I want to weep but that will do no good and besides I need to stay hydrated to retain my youthful appearance.

No, it’s over for today. I begin to think about all those people who say clichés like, “Live today as if it’s your last.” Well, if today was my last day, I’d go to hell without being able to let anyone know that I’m on a MikWright card, that I have Dreamgirls crap that Paramount sent me that I have to get rid of (who needs 60 copies of the novelization of the movie, Dreamgirls?) and I’d go to my grave replaying “I am thanking you for the holding” in an Indian accent in my head instead of Barbra Streisand singing, “Don’t Rain On My Parade” (the song that is normally going through my head). And I wonder, “Is it I, Lord? Am I the only one who ever experienced such lack of support when calling a center that has the word “support” in its name?” Have you ever called technical support? – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Relatively Speaking My Family Is Lousy With Gays! – Don’t Get Me Started!

For years I really thought that my family was normal. Even when I became involved with my guy and he told me that he always thought that the way Jews were portrayed in movies and plays were “over the top”, that is until he met my family. I always just assumed that we were a little bit different but at the same time not all that different from everyone else. Well, in yesterday’s blog I talked about my aunt going to a gay card store to buy my card by MikWright (click here to buy it already, will you? http://www.somelikeitscott.com/somelikefaves.html ) Now usually before I write a blog I tell the story to a few people just to make sure the topic has some sense of fun and interest. When I was telling the tale of my aunt being in a gay card store, I was just thinking of your typical card store with cards, rainbow products and “his” and “his” towels. I really wasn’t thinking about a store that had lube, nipple clamps and porn. But of course, a dear friend of mine immediately went there. At first I laughed and then I thought, “Hmmm…I’m sure my aunt would be fine with that kind of store too!” In fact, my aunt emailed yesterday and said that indeed the store was filled with gay goodies…including the fact that she knew it was a store for gays because (and I quote her) “the men’s underwear that was being sold there was the size of a cell phone for $25!” (Yes, everyone in my family is hysterical)  Relatively speaking my family is lousy (‘swarming or teeming) with gays! – Don’t Get Me Started!

You see my family has a lot of history with the gays because there are quite a few in my family. Recently it dawned on my Mother that most of the gays in the family were from my father (and the aunt from the card store’s) side of the family. My Mother was delighted that no longer could my Father blame her for my gayness because she bought me a G.I. Joe at two years old (when I desperately wanted a Barbie) and for taking me to dance class, theatre and shopping. It is indeed in the genes when you look at my family, I remember when I was little there was a relative in my family everyone called, “Betty The Dyke.” “Betty The Dyke” – yes, growing up, I thought this was her full name. No one said it in a mean or bad way (I know this is the typical argument for people who use gay slurs) but honestly, it’s just who she was and that’s what everyone called her…well, behind her back anyway. Okay I guess looking at it in print it occurs to me that this is pretty bad but you know how what you grow up with seems normal to you even if it is wrong?

Sure every family has some goofy stories and people but I’ll see your uncle Todd the alcoholic for my uncle who was a rabbi and is now a flight attendant for Southwest Airlines! (Oddly enough, this would be my aunt from the card store’s husband!) The above statement never fails to stop everyone dead in their tracks. No one can believe that my uncle used to be a rabbi and is now a flight attendant but it’s all true. That’s right, the man who assisted me with my Haftorah portion (look it up at http://www.torah.org/learning/haftorah/ ) for my bar mitzvah is now flying the Southwest skies. (Be aware that no one really thought that I would ever learn my portion of the torah for my bar mitzvah in Hebrew as I was so busy at the time doing theater and performing with a dance company but somehow with the use of technology – specifically a cassette that my uncle recorded with him singing through my Torah portion – I was able to learn my stuff as you would learn a song off the radio – not something I’m incredibly proud of now but at the time it was the only way I was going to learn this stuff, play “The Artful Dodger” in a production of Oliver and have the party to get the checks!)  

I guess there’s something to be said for the whole safety in numbers things. Because there are so many gay relatives I think my family is much more accepting on the whole. And sometimes it can even be a bit annoying. Some of my straight relatives love having gay relatives so much that they delight in introducing my guy at functions, “You know this is Scott’s lover. That’s the right term right? Lover, right? Anyway, he’s been Scott’s lover for years.” They keep saying the word “lover” over and over to I don’t know, either get a reaction out of the person they’re telling or just because they like saying the word. It makes me laugh (and roll my eyes).

I remember when one of my cousins came out and another cousin (who had only been out for about a year or so) was telling me how he was counseling the newest out cousin and had given books to the newly out cousin’s parents to read to help them with learning that their son was gay. I was indignant and livid and a few more words I can’t even think of here. I was like, “Listen, grasshopper, you have not snatched the cultured pearl from my hand yet, I’m the gaytriarch in this family and all gayness and gay counseling needs to go through me!” Truth be told, the cousins are from another generation, they’re the new sleeker models so my younger cousin would probably be better at the whole thing than me at this point. Still, everyone needs to be put in their place every once in awhile too and I’m just the head of the family’s gayness to do it. Relatively speaking my family is lousy (‘swarming or teeming) with gays! – Don’t Get Me Started!

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