CNN Poll Says Gays Can’t Change Orientation. Whew, I Feel Better – Don’t Get Me Started!

In a CNN poll that was released yesterday, for the first time in CNN poll world the majority polled believe that gays can’t change their fuchsia stripes. That’s right, people are finally catching on that we gays are…um, I don’t know…well…GAY! (Shhh, don’t tell Anne Heche – they can have her, we don’t want her anyway) I have to say that most of us should be delighted to find out that people (straight ones) are finally coming around to what those of us who are gay have known all along. However, if you look at the poll a little closer you’ll discover that it’s not time to break out the Cristal just yet. CNN poll says gays can’t change orientation. Whew, I feel better – Don’t Get Me Started!

I get it, we’re supposed to be all fired up and excited any time that a poll or study comes out that says that there are more people out in the world who are accepting of us and I’m not negating the fact that it is nice to know that people’s tolerance (and I mean their ability to “put up with”) us gays is getting better. But it’s still a little like cancer, have pity for anyone else’s family who has it but hope you don’t get it in yours. (Which at this point is nearly impossible on both fronts – gays and cancer)

The thing is that the poll was taken on a Friday through Sunday by telephone. Now we know that most of the people they interviewed had to be straight because the boys are out on Friday and Saturday night and on Sunday all the old queens go antiquing. (Stop cringing, they’re only stereotypes, kids)

Let’s go to the tote board (without Ed McMahon or a “timpani”) 56% said they do not feel that gays can change their orientation (up from 45% in 2001 and 36% in 1998). 79% said we should  be allowed to go into the military and the marriage battle wages on with 43% not supporting gay’s rights to marriage, 24% support the gays getting married (as long as they plan it, of course) and 27% support civil unions.  

Yes, we have a lot to be thankful for and we are definitely making strides. I think all of this is encouraging and something to take great Pride in. I also think that some of it is just really funny. While it’s great that the public is getting educated that you can’t be gay, go into rehab and come out free of the gay, meth, massage therapist/hooker and go back to the pulpit…well, not immediately anyway (Read that blog here…Gays Can Be Happy Again Now That Haggard Is Not! ) they still really aren’t all that excited about having us at their country clubs or swimming in their pools (social or public). Frankly, I think that we’ve benefited because some have just thrown their hands up in exasperation going, “What are you going to do with these gays? Ach, let them be gay all ready, I’m too tired to fight it any more and they do my hair so nice.”  We’ve either worn them down or they became hooked on Will and Grace now that it’s on Lifetime (television for women and gays) and have decided we’re fun to laugh with as well as at. As my grandmother used to say in the 70’s, “You know those gays, they’re everywhere.” And we are.

Let’s face it, not too many people are all that excited or supportive about the war so I think it’s a little hard to determine if people don’t care about gays in the military or just feel as though whoever signs up at this point as long as it’s not them, God bless.

I think the marriage question is going to be a deal breaker for a long time to come but mostly because of the word, “marriage” as traditionalists cling to tradition better than a…a…Fiddler On The Roof (“sounds crazy, no?”). I hate the whole “civil unions” title as it sounds like a business partnership that while very civil doesn’t have a lot of sex involved in it (ooh, sounds like a lot of my straight married friends).

The point is that most people are finding out that the gays aren’t quite as scary as they originally thought and that’s a really good thing. It’s good that they’re doing these polls, it’s good that we’re coming out on top for a change and it will be interesting to see where things go from here. CNN poll says gays can’t change orientation. Whew, I feel better – Don’t Get Me Started!

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I Believe My Fortune Cookie, Dammit! – Don’t Get Me Started!

Here I am in LA, the land of dreams and sometimes you have to allow yourself to be open to divine intervention. True, for some this happens by humming with a bunch of people they don’t know in Sedona, Arizona but for me it happened in a much simpler, humbler way in a Chinese restaurant in Burbank. I was out at dinner with a pal and at the end of the meal the waiter brought the clarity I’d been looking for over the years but had always proved elusive to me. Yes, in that oddly folded cookie was the fortune I’ve waited for all my life and although some would say that it is just superstitious to believe in the power of a fortune cookie, I say, “Oh ye, of little faith!” I believe my fortune cookie, dammit! -  Don’t Get Me Started!

Sure, I could find inspiration on a bumper sticker (“Hate Is NOT A Family Value”) or the mini van I saw recently that had so many “fish” symbols on the back of it that I think even Jesus would be impressed. But no, those are inspiration for the uneducated, the uninformed the pedestrian dreamers, if you will. If you’ve read any of my blogs you know I’m a dreamer, a lover of life (stop rolling your eyes) and this fortune just confirmed everything I always knew about myself but was afraid to say out loud.

As I opened the fortune cookie, I admit that I almost choked on the less than flavorful orangey colored crunchy dough and I think I inhaled some of the cookie dust like some cheap and less than exotic cocaine – there was no rush just a sneeze and a lump in my throat (brought on by the cookie, not emotion). And does anyone really LIKE these cookies or is it all about the fortune? But enough of this, back to what you’ve been waiting for…in between two smiley faces was the truth that few have seen or understood about me that somehow someone in a fortune cookie factory saw and understood. The phrase on that tiny slip of paper you ask? It was, “You are never bitter, deceptive or petty.”

Do you need a minute? I know…I needed one too. Yes, though some have accused me of being “bitchy” or a “queen” from reading my blogs they don’t get me at all. Not like the fortune cookie people. Immediately I was thinking, this is my next t-shirt and then I thought of a person that was somewhat in my life who had made negative remarks about me. She had talked to someone about being afraid of me because of things that I had said. Things that I don’t even remember saying and so I said to my dinner companion, “I’m getting this blown up and framed for Marie.” After all, the fortune knew what I never did, that I wasn’t bitter, deceptive or petty…to me that was a “get out of jail free” card. I could pretty much do anything and yet never be considered being any of those nasty things above. If anyone said anything different I could always just pull out my fortune and go, “Ah…excuse me, did you say I was being petty??? I think not and I have it in writing. See?”

So here’s what I suggest. I suggest you all go out for Chinese food immediately and whatever you do (you’re going to be hungry all over again a few hours later so make sure that you take some home with you) but eat that meal and get to the cookie and whatever the fortune is that you get, have it blown up and live by it. True, my pal’s fortune was something about being a nice and sunny person (which he is and who cares?) but mine was the real gem and all I hope is that there is one out there for you too. I believe my fortune cookie, dammit! -  Don’t Get Me Started!

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Ask A Gay (Stereotype that is) Needs To Go Away! – Don’t Get Me Started!

For those of you who don’t know, William Sled is a twenty-three year old manager of The Gap in Kentucky who with his best friend Stephanie, have created videos on YouTube, called “Ask A Gay.” Well, recently outzonetv.com has “picked them up” to do videos for their website. Outzonetv is owned by Bravo so I’m traipsing on dangerous ground considering Bravo gave me the opportunity to be the Ultimate Fan Blogger for season 3 of Project Runway (and would like to be for season 4) and they have listed my site on the outzonetv.com blogroll. But I’m sorry; this recent move has just made me crazy. Ask A Gay (Stereotype that is) needs to go away! – Don’t Get Me Started!

You see, as with most of these video blogs out now, the people look into their Apple iBook and let the camera roll. Most of these people (Yes, I’m talking to Rosie now too) seem to spend most of their time looking at themselves talking into the camera. I don’t have an iBook so I wouldn’t know but from looking at some video blogs, it appears as if they can see themselves. It’s a little like watching a five year old on Leno who is more enamored by the monitor that they can see themselves in on the stage than in the show that is happening, that they are supposed to be a part of at the same moment. Tell me again about the guy who drowned looking at his own reflection?

The reason this latest move by outzonetv.com makes me crazy is that the whole idea of “Ask A Gay” needs to be handled by someone who actually knows something. The videos should really be named, “Ask a Gay Stereotype” as in the video I watched William goes on and on about his devotion for the color pink (okay, didn’t get past the first minute) and he and Stephanie were going to bake wedding cakes. There they sat in their veils while William continually played with his hair and looked at his image sucking in his cheeks and pouting doing bad Zoolander looks, while asking if anyone would really want a pink wedding cake. Thank you outzonetv.com for once again confirming to the world that gays only come in one variety – pink loving, wedding cake making, veiled, primping, prisses who have about as much depth as the shallow end of a kid’s blow up pool.

As I told my twenty-something cousin when he was telling me about how he was helping another cousin of ours come out (Read the blog here…Relatively Speaking My Family Is Full Up With The Gays) “I’m the Gaytriarch in this family and all gayness must go through me!” The point is that I hate to say it but if you’re going to be a gay the first thing you should learn is to be yourself, not a stereotype that will garner you attention but in most cases, the wrong kind of attention. No one can make me believe that the image that this kid William is putting out there is his real self and not some made up persona that he thinks is what being gay is all about. He’s wrong, dead wrong.

So who is at fault here? While I would love to blame the religious right or the government, I’m afraid that the real enemy is us gays. “The fault, Dear Bravo, is not in our stars, but in ourselves that we are underlings.” (From Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, kind of) Bravo and its sister site are full up with the gay executives so you would think that they would have the common decency to want to portray the gays with some sense in their head. Such is not the case. Kudos Bravo for Queer Eye – the show that showed us gays know how to cook, do hair, throw throw pillows and dress people (we’re still not sure what Jai did – other than bring in an ethnic into the mix). Or the one to three gays they put on each of their competition shows. (Notice that most are like the twitching and clutching pearls Dave from Top Chef.) Wow, there’s something to feel Prideful about, isn’t it? Sure there are the Tim Gunn’s of Bravo but they are too few and far between.

To those who would label me a “Bitchy Queen” and reserve me a table under the name, “Bitter” table for one, let me say that you are wrong. I’m glad the kid is getting his fifteen minutes, honestly I am but at what cost to the rest of us? Lighthearted entertainment is great (have you read most of my blog entries) but at some point, can’t there be some substance represented amongst the fluff? And in some part, if all that is seen is the stereotypical image of gays doesn’t it keep us relegated as the court jester of straight society? I don’t know about the rest of you but I’m tired of being the monkey with the tin cup dancing every time the straight organ grinder turns on “I Will Survive” – perhaps at some point soon we need to make it our “Last Dance” and I say, let’s start with “Ask A Gay.” Ask A Gay (Stereotype that is) needs to go away! – Don’t Get Me Started!

 
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Why Is It Always A Minority Group That I’m In That Is In Trouble?! – Don’t Get Me Started!

So I’m sure by now you’ve all heard about the Jew that tried to bomb the gay Pride parade in Jerusalem. I can’t help it, every time I see a headline that has “Gay” or “Jew” or “Teacher Has Affair With Student” I start to cringe. (And no, I’ve never been a teacher who had an affair with a student) Why is it always a minority group that I’m in that is in trouble?! – Don’t Get Me Started!

So apparently the story goes that a 32-year old Orthodox Jew was caught with a bomb that he had made to throw at the marching gays. God love Israel’s police (cause you know that they don’t fuck around). They apprehended him and no one missed a step of the march. The Orthodox Jews are mighty upset about the gays marching on what they consider a holy place, Jerusalem. I get it and understand they’re all fired up but come on people, stop with the holy ground and start living holy lives before you get all holier than thou.

The point is that if you’re like me, the minute you read the headline, you’re sick to your stomach. “Jewish bomber seized before Jerusalem gay parade” – it just kills me. I know that it’s accurate but I start to cringe and I can’t help myself because I’m like, “Oh here we go, another thing for the religious right to go off on us Jews and gays about.” This is the story they’ll jump on. First we’re going to hell because we’re Jews and rounding second we’re making bombs, coming up to third base it’s in Jerusalem and sliding home for the kill, the gays caused it by marching. Home Run! And that my friends, is what we call a born again Christian Grand Slam. (And I don’t even like parades, dammit!)

It’s like when you see the headlines about the teachers who have had sex with a student. I can’t help it, I read the headline and then I say a little prayer. “Oh dear God, please, please, I am begging you. Make it some white blonde chick with a football player. Don’t make it the boys’ swim coach with the team or the girls’ soccer coach with her goalie. Please, please, I beg of you.” I know it’s wrong but I can’t help myself. I know for some of you you’re going to leave my site and go scouting around for porn with the above scenarios immediately (and what you do on your own time is your business) but when it comes to public scandal, I always hope it’s a male teacher who has had sex with a girl student instead of with a boy. Why? You know why, because if it’s a male teacher and a male student then we have to listen to the Rush Limbaughs of the world go off about the gays trying to “recruit” and “bring young boys into the gay fold” (Let’s face it, when it comes to folds, most young gay boys are more interested in folding jeans at the Gap than joining Mr. Murphy from Science class in an anatomy lesson over the bunson burner!).

No matter what, I can’t seem to escape being in the minority that has done something so egregious that it makes my Jewish guilt sensors go off the charts. Suddenly I want to go around saying to complete strangers, “Look at me, I’m Jewish and gay but I’m in a long term relationship, I rescued two stray cats, I vote and I call my mother at least once a day. I’m a good person. See??? Pay no attention to the Jew bomber or the PE teacher giving physical exams with her tongue on girl students behind the curtain. I can give you a list of at least ten other gays who are good people too, honest I can.”

Perhaps some would say that I’m too sensitive and that there’s plenty of scandal to go around. I guess that’s why we cheer when there’s a straight involved in some sort of scandal. We have to bring them down like they do to us but the thing about doing that is that no one wins. Not the victims, and certainly not the group of people who are associated with the offender, whether they be men, women, black, white, Jews, gays or one of the Jackson family. And so I’ll continue to open my Google news or CNN.com with one eye open, saying my little prayer that today will not be the day I see a headline that involves any group I’m associated with, all the while knowing my prayers won’t be answered. Why is it always a minority group that I’m in that is in trouble?! – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Forty-Something Gay Pride (Part Two) – Don’t Get Me Started!

To say that I was shocked by the number of forty-something gays who wrote in after yesterday’s blog would be an understatement. As I tell a lot of people, when you’re writing a blog it’s a pretty solitary thing so you never really know if people are reading or not unless they write in. So to those who wrote in, thank you for reading and writing to me. The common thread in the emails I received was that everyone seemed to be giving a collective sigh of relief that someone validated their right to stay home from Pride parades and not feel badly about it. After doing some more looking around the web to see what other people had to say about Pride week I felt validated about my feelings on the subject. Forty-something gay Pride (Part Two) – Don’t Get Me Started!

I guess one of the bigger surprises from reading everyone’s thoughts about Pride online are the people who feel as though we need to have a Pride month similar to Black History Month. Now this is really surprising to me when all over people are talking about how they can’t get people to a parade for one day. Now you want to be Julie McCoy on the Love Boat and try to find a month full of activities? Are you crazy? What would those be like? Gay shuffle board (where you push cock rings down the Lido deck)? A Tennessee Williams play festival (where the entire audience is dressed like Blanche DuBois trying to depend on the kindness of strangers)? Sorry to say that I just can’t imagine it. From being with a black man for almost nineteen years, I can tell you that Black History Month is basically an insult to that community. Until we get to the point where we can celebrate diversity 365 days a year, giving a specific group a month is like creating a Hallmark holiday – you buy the cards but you’re not really sure why.

No, I don’t think a month is the answer and let’s face it, how many times can you cheer, “Two bits, four bits, suck dicks, a dollar!” at a parade? (Okay, I admit it, I never shouted that in my life nor have I heard anyone say it, it just came to me and I just thought it was funny) Here’s my new thought, perhaps we need to do something that will appeal to the gays of a certain age while teaching the gays of tomorrow how “the movement” started? Before we forget the rest of the chant, “We’re here, we’re queer…um….what was that now….ah…..get used to it?” I’m suggesting we do historical reenactments, you know like they do of the Civil War battles? We can all stuff ourselves into 501 jeans (Read that blog here… Bringing 501s Back ), put on big Village People cop mustaches and reenact the Stonewall riots. Next stop on the hysterical historical tour would be a dinner party in the Hamptons and then board “Spirit” airlines to fly to Vegas to finish the night at Studio 54, dancing to Donna Summer. Okay, having just read that last paragraph reminds me of the article I read in The Advocate about a Gay Spring Break that some company had created. It supposedly taught classes about gay history, financial planning and I guess the proper application of lube. It was supposed to be a chance for gay youth to not only have fun in the sun but also be accepted and learn. But to do that for your spring break? Come on, think college kids on mom and dad’s dime…you tell me if gay or straight they’re going to Florida beaches to learn or get laid?

Okay, so perhaps the Hysterical History tour is out but taking a tip from a Some Like It Scott pal, Grayson, I know what we can do that won’t depend on getting a city permit, won’t cost us millions of dollars and won’t be in danger of becoming a Hallmark card…what if we all get off our gay asses and vote for candidates that don’t have to be gay but at least appreciate our existence? Grayson wrote to me about his frustrations when trying to get some friends to vote recently in Dallas for a gay mayoral candidate. His pals gave all the clichés, “What will my one vote matter?” or “Rosie was on that day and my Tivo wasn’t working.” I’m not saying that just because someone is gay they are the perfect candidate (look at McCreepey, I mean, Mc Greevey from New Jersey – Read that blog here… Jim McGreevey Is A Little McCreepy For This Gay ) but we’ve got to start getting some representation (and I don’t mean from The William Morris Agency – although if there’s anyone from that agency reading who’s interested in me, just know, I’m interested in you!). Perhaps the best thing we can do to show our Pride is to get some people in office who all ready get that we gays contribute a lot to society (all while being turned down to give blood, being told we can’t be Boy Scout Leaders or serve openly in the military). I hate to say it, but it seems as if the only way to get some gays to vote is to tell them the polling booths are actually glory holes. Well whatever it takes but until we get out and vote in leaders who get it, we’re doomed to stay in the shadows of society.

At the end of the day, I think the real reason that Pride seems to be wavering is that it was turned into a commercial holiday by some enterprising gays who made a lot of money off their fellow gays (selling rainbow suncatchers and t-shirts with double entendre sayings like, “Mac’s Lube Shop”). But like Christmas, no one really remembers what it was supposed to be about anymore. And instead of a Jolly Old Saint Nick character all the Pride parades have are bad drag queens with armpit hair wearing a badly beaded dress. Let’s face it, Pride has become the Lola character from the Manilow classic, “Copacabana” – “Her name was Lola, she was a showgirl. But that was thirty years ago, when they used to have a show. Now it’s a disco, but not for Lola. Still in that dress she used to wear, faded feathers in her hair…” I think it’s time to put Pride out of its misery or perhaps just create Pride The Next Generation.

We’ve had to reinvent ourselves before and we can do it again. The first thing is to start liking one another again, accepting each other and stop defining ourselves only by the images the media and advertisers show us. Remember when we took to the streets to educate our community about HIV before trying to make the ads look “hot” so that us gays would pay attention to them? Let’s show our Pride by celebrating our history, each other and a direction for our future…of just being the gays next door with our 2.5 kids (or not), white picket fence (or not) and as we’ve always done, being the coolest people on the block to know. Forty-something gay Pride (Part Two) – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Forty-Something Gay Pride – Don’t Get Me Started!

Well, it’s Pride week for the gays and good for us…I guess. I know that I should be ripping my shirt off (though many would beg for me to put it back on) don a rainbow colored afro wig, sling back pumps and march in a parade but alas, unlike Dolly Levy in Hello Dolly – that parade has passed me by and I’m not all that concerned about it to tell you the truth. Forty-something Gay Pride – Don’t Get Me Started!

What do you do when you see all the images of a group that you’re supposed to be associated with and don’t see yourself anywhere? I can imagine this is how the fat girls feel when they look at a Vogue or how black people have felt for years before they were represented in the media. But there’s something more to it.

I’ve known for years that the gay community that preaches acceptance has done little to accept everyone. The perfect picture of a gay man is the portrait of Dorian Gray. Always young, handsome enough to be called pretty yet something just a bit off. (You know, like a portrait in the backroom that is doing all the aging.) No surprise that the story was written by a gay man. We do it to ourselves, every time. Being ever youthful seems to be the gay ideal and as I never really worried all that much about getting older…again another piece of the rainbow jigsaw puzzle just doesn’t fit for me.

This all struck me when I read an article on www.queerty.com yesterday about this twenty-three year old kid who has been broadcasting his own show on YouTube, “Ask A Gay.”  He was picked up by www.outzonetv.com (where Some Like It Scott appears on the blogroll) to do reporting for them on Pride festivities in New York and be a regular correspondent on their site. This is a twenty-three year old kid who is a manager of a Gap store and talks about such important things as who should wear the “skinny jean” and who shouldn’t. (The boy is as flouncy as they come) Kudos to him for getting a regular gig but as the article on Queerty suggested, I wouldn’t ask that particular gay for any advice and who is Bravo (the parent company for outzonetv) doing any favors by continuing the stereotypical image of gays? Didn’t they all ready do enough with Queer Eye? And yet, does that make me less than accepting too? It just might.

My point is that I’m not young enough to be picked up by Bravo or MTV, not old enough to be living in Palm Springs and I don’t qualify to be a David Geffen gay (all the money and power in the known universe). So where pray tell am I, a forty-something gay who has been with the same man for almost nineteen years, living a simple life and secretly wishing for fame, fortune or at the very least recognition in the community that is supposed to represent me supposed to take my act? That’s right, there’s no place like home for me apparently unless I start swishing, taking steroids to pump up or someone in my family dies and leaves me millions.

PlanetOut, the parent company for magazines like The Advocate, Out and almost every other glossy magazine for gays is in financial trouble. It doesn’t surprise me as the magazines all seem identical at this point with the exception of the cover. (Read that blog here… PlanetOut Really Down And Out? ) But could it be that there are more gays like me out there somewhere? Gays who just aren’t buying what our gay media wants to sell us? Triangle pink diamond partner rings, real estate in Key West and believe it or not, not everyone wants to be sailing to Cancun with the five shirtless guys with great abs sipping umbrella drinks in the ad either (sorry, just can’t imagine floating around on some barge while no one on the ship can get past the “S.S.S.S.” part of the name of the ship. Perhaps it’s because I was Cleopatra in a former life – been there done that?).

I used to tell myself that I could still be one of the crowd I saw at parades and in magazines but the more I look around it’s not about becoming a certain age that pushes me out of the “running of the gays”, it’s that I was never part of that crowd in the first place. I don’t have a leather harness in the back of my closet, I don’t have a healed scar from the nipple ring from my impetuous youth, and I don’t have pictures of me on a float in drag.

Dare I say it, with all my passion for life, the humor I find in it and my man, I’m just one of the dreaded <look right, look left, whisper> normal gays. And there seems to be increasingly less and less representation of us in the world. If we don’t look like the gay that dumped Lance Bass or we don’t have the money of the gay mafia, we’re in no gay man’s land. We’re not “gay enough” for TV and not rich enough to buy the $25,000 tables at an AIDS benefit, so we are non-existent.

Don’t get me wrong, I have plenty of Pride but the question would be why gay websites, the media and other gay men don’t appear to have any pride that I’m one of them? I’m not the wall flower at the dance but I’ll also never be voted Homecoming King/Queen. So for those of you reading this who also fall into the category that I do, I just want you to know that although no one may ever ask you to be in an ad without your shirt on for gay furniture and you don’t have a rainbow flag hanging from your garage, you’re a gay too. An important part of the gay community and I celebrate you. Us regular garden variety gays need to stick together and perhaps when publishers like PlanetOut and television figure out there’s more of us than them and they’ll get smart and market to us.

What I really want is for all you forty-something gays who aren’t afraid of being forty (trying to still pass for 29 and dating a twenty-one year old who thinks you’re 26) to throw your Advocate magazines in the trash, flip the channel when there’s another Pride parade being mocked by the evening news showing only the drag queens, go to your window and scream, “I’m gay as hell too and I’m not going to take it anymore!” Forty-something Gay Pride – Don’t Get Me Started!

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I’m Offended You’re Offended By Hallmark For This – Don’t Get Me Started!

So supposedly, Hallmark pulled a card that some gays found to be offensive. The card, designed for Father’s Day read “Dad how about a Father’s Day picnic?” on the front of it and the phrase, “Too queer? Yeah, I thought so too” on the inside. Have we really gotten to this point where even Hallmark, the maker upper of holidays that have no true value other than to sell cards, has found a way to offend us? I’m offended you’re offended by Hallmark For This – Don’t Get Me Started!

Come on people, they’ve put in a line of cards by Maya Angelou, they’ve put cards in Spanish, they’ve even put in a few more Jewish holiday cards (although they’re always smaller than Christmas cards, not boxed and on the bottom shelf). How can you be mad at a company that helped put “sweetest day” on the map? A holiday, incidentally, that was created by candy companies to sell candy but somehow is supposed to celebrate those you love while reminding you to also think of the sick, aged and orphaned all on one day. Um...wouldn’t that be everyone? Well, start hoarding your candy as the holiday is the third Saturday in October each year. My point is that all you have to do is walk into a Hallmark store to see what it’s all about. Have you ever been in one? Let me walk you through it.

The employees are (now don’t anyone get offended) predominantly white women of a certain age from another era. An era where Tupperware parties still reign supreme and the most important things in their day is straightening the resin statues with biblical phrases on them and wondering what they’re going to feed their “men” when they get home at night. These women have been lost in time, completely. They blush when the cards came in with the male stripper on the front exposing, dare I say it, his nipples <blush> and wearing nothing but a Speedo. These women are six minutes away from creating a bake sale at any given moment. And this my friends, is why we’ve seen Hallmark card stores dying out like the dinosaur they are, having only slightly changed with the times. So no wonder they would produce a card that has a queer joke in it. Look at their employees and consumers and the whole story reveals itself. Here’s what I think the “ladies” at Hallmark would say about all the fuss. “After all Helen, I don’t see what all the fuss is about, those gays have that television show about five “queer” boys who “fix up” real men on the television. Of course I didn’t watch the actual show but I did see an advertisement for it while I was watching something on the Food Network. Oh it was a yummy looking casserole that had tuna and get ready for this…some sherry in it, if you can believe that. Can you think of anything so daring? Oh wait, no it wasn’t on the Food Network, I think one of those queers was on the television selling pants suits on QVC right after the brooch hour. I got the most stunning bumble bee pin made of painted enamel in 24 carat plated gold and two Diamonique stones for the eyes. No, I didn’t watch the queer boy. After all, I had to get John’s dinner ready.”

The thing that is so funny about all of this is that all you have to do is look at the Hallmark offerings online to see that they have a completely different sensibility online. Have you looked and listened to any of the Hoops&YoYo cards? They were obviously written and voiced by either some gays or people who’ve done a lot of hanging out with the gays. How Hallmark has managed to live this dual life this long without them crashing into one another is pretty amazing actually. (Maybe Jim McGreevey is running this company!) Let’s just call it functionally dysfunctional. (But don’t most of us fit into that category?)

I get why some gays were offended by the cards but aren’t we all tired of being so offended by everything and everyone else? I don’t know about you but for me it’s simply exhausting. Should I be offended that there’s so much to get offended about or is it offensive that I’ve lost my barometer on what’s offensive due to the fact that everything I read is telling me to be offended by everything else?

We shouldn’t be offended at Hallmark, they are what they are and we should accept them for their choice to have no grip on reality. Their’s is a reality of butterflies with glitter on the front of cards with things like, “To Someone Nice To Know” on them. They should leave the humor to people who can better handle it, the online Hallmark consumers who send e-cards like Hoops&YoYo and people who buy cards from MikWright (Love them – www.mikwright.com ) and close all the Hallmark stores. Or do you find that offensive? If so, I’m offended you’re offended by Hallmark For This – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Ex-Mrs. McCreepy (Sorry, McGreevey) Has Slow Book Sales – Don’t Get Me Started!

As you know from my previous post, I was one of the few homosexuals who was not all that fired up about the coming out of the governor of New Jersey as he stepped down from office. Why you may ask? Because to me, Jim McGreevey has always seemed a little McCreepy. (Read the blog here…Jim McGreevey Is A Little McCreepy For This Gay) And even after I saw him on Oprah there was something that just seemed a bit suspect to me. Well, not to be out done by her ex, the soon to be divorced Mrs. McGreevey has been published too. Ex-Mrs. McCreepy (sorry, McGreevey) has slow book sales – Don’t Get Me Started!

Blaming her ex-husband for the slow book sales of her book about her long suffering experiences of finding out her hubby was gay, Jim and Dina McGreevey rate right up there for me with the Buttafucos and Amy Fisher. Remember their story? Remember now how you don’t care about it? <True story time – my parents were at some event in New York that the Buttafucos attended too. My mother, never one to be at a loss for words, when introduced to Mary Jo (Buttafuco’s wife) made the usual small talk and then came out with this classic gem, “How’s your face?” – yet another reason I love my mother!>

My point for both McGreeveys is that someone needs to let you know that your fifteen minutes of fame have definitely expired. You’ve both been on Oprah and couldn’t even manage to make a best selling book out of the appearance so all ready you’ve got to know that you’re both really dull (even with ghost writers). If you want the public to care about you, read your books or even possibly buy them, you’re going to have to put some more money in the media meter. Jim, you’ll have to leave the rich Australian billionaire that you’ve created Southfork New Jersey with and start dating Lance Bass. Dina, you’ll have to start your own talk show titled, “So you think your husband is gay?” The problem is that neither of you are interesting enough to pull either of those off.

And have you seen Jim McGreevey at his Southfork New Jersey? Oh my God, he and his luvah have managed to get every gay cliché picture perfect. They have this sprawling mansion where they lounge on their wood Adirondack chairs looking at the big mansion while the dogs run around in the yard. The thing is that you get the very distinct impression that you wouldn’t want to be in either’s company for a long period of time and since all you got to see of the house on the Oprah show was a fussy early American living room; the feeling I got was that they have doilies all over God creation, looking as though they took the house from some ninety year old grandmother and just loved everything about it so didn’t change a thing. Who doesn’t love a spinning wheel in the center of a room next to the Betsy Ross inspired rocker? It just makes you go, “Hmmm. I thought the gays had better taste than this….well, I know I do (read my Queerty.com essay http://www.queerty.com/art/the-style-issue-designing-for-two-20070613/ …hmmm…the straights can have Jim back, effective immediately.”

I have had gay friends who have been married to women and while I understand that the guys think they’re being all butch and covering it, I have to say that the only way a woman could not know that they were gay is because they didn’t want to know that they were gay. These women, who look at a man as if he may be the “one” are really just looking for the white dress and picket fence no matter what the cost to them personally. And in the case of Dina McGreevey, if you don’t think for a minute she didn’t have her eyes on being First Lady instead of Jim’s crotch you’re mistaken. Of course, in the cruelest twist of fate, Jim became First Lady and Dina became, well…someone who can’t sell books.

Times have changed and there is no reason for gay men to try to “fit” in with straight society by marrying women, ruining unsuspecting women’s lives and yet there are millions in that position right now. The thing is, with Oprah’s “down low” or “DL” show and with all the media that the gay celebs get when they come out, you would think that at the very least Mrs. McGreevey could sell some books with her topic, right? I haven’t read her or her husband’s book (and I won’t) but perhaps she took the wrong approach.

Instead of writing about her long suffering (building her own cross and dragging it on the lawn of the governor’s mansion) perhaps she should have really been writing about all the tell-tale signs that she claims she never saw in her husband or their relationship? Seems to me that an approach like that would truly assist women in the same situation rather than claiming ignorance for four hundred pages, causing everyone to wonder how she could have deluded herself for so long. She should tell stories (even if they were made up) of how Jim would tell her that indeed what she had put on to wear to the cocktail party DID make her look fat. He would make her change blouses over and over again until he liked what she had on before photo ops with the press. Now this is the kind of stuff we would be interested in, right? Then we might have some sympathy for her or even read her book. But unfortunately, such is not the case. And while I agree that she was married under false pretenses and I feel a bit sorry for her, I don’t feel sorry for her that she managed to take an interesting topic and make it so dull no one cares about it. Ex-Mrs. McCreepy (sorry, McGreevey) has slow book sales – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Web Searches – Who Are These People? – Don’t Get Me Started!

Like most websites, mine can tell me who has clicked over from another site that has a link to mine (an example would be the “blogroll” my site is included on at www.outzonetv.com ), it can tell me how many people are visiting the site and the average amount of times people are visiting my site. Now before you get all creeped out, thinking it’s all too, “Big Brother is watching” for you (Yes, I’m talking directly to my pal Betsy with that comment) it does not provide me with any personal information about you specifically. (But why ARE you wearing that pair of pants while you’re reading this? You know it makes your ass look huge. Oh, going out to find a date and you WANT your ass to look huge…well, mission accomplished!) And there’s a lot of data the site gives me that I have no idea what the hell it means however, I recently looked to see the “searches” people have put into Internet search engines (like Google) that brought them to my site. Web searches – who are these people? – Don’t Get Me Started!

Okay, now some of the following I get but a lot I just don’t understand. Not to mention the fact that I’m sure whoever these people are, some were astonished to find me at the end of their rainbow…I mean, search. There’s no need to comment on these really, just read them and then tell me you don’t think some are as hysterical as I do!