Honestly, I Just Wanted To Buy Some Cat Food – Don’t Get Me Started!

As I stopped at one of the larger pet retailers on my way home from work yesterday I was met by that person we all have encountered on planes, trains and while shopping…the dreaded, “Let me talk to you like we’ve known one another for years” total stranger. You know the ones I’m talking about, they take the smallest thing and supposedly “strike up” a conversation with you when in reality all they’re really doing is talking at you, not with you and frankly it’s as annoying as hell. Honestly, I just wanted to buy some cat food – Don’t Get Me Started!

As I turned the aisle to get the cat food (I’m a power shopper at all times. I know exactly where things are and how much I’m going to get so I can get in and get out – you know, just like sex in a public place…okay, well, maybe not exactly like it, not that I would know really, I would have to defer to George Michael on this one.) I turned the corner into the aisle and there she was…she was about mid-sixties and was wearing a lipstick color about seven shades too dark for her. It made her look like some sort of odd makeup counter woman from the 1980’s or as if she just dropped out of a Nagel painting (and had aged…quite a bit). Her cart was in the middle of the aisle and she had walked to the far end of the aisle, looking at a can of cat food that I immediately recognized as a brand other than the one I buy my cats. As I started to take the cans I wanted off the shelf (on sale and two of each variety as it makes it easier and faster at the checkout if you have all your “like cans” together in the handheld basket) I hear, “Did you get one of these in the mail?” I look over at the voice (that could only be coming from the only other person in the aisle with me) I look at the can in her hand and do a half-smile with no eye contact and say, “Yes, I did.” Now for normal people this would end the conversation but oh no, not with the dark lipped talky Tallulah. As I continue getting cans off the shelf she starts the monologue. “Well, I got it in the mail too and now it’s all my cat will eat. Can you imagine? <she chuckles to herself as I’m wondering what could possibly be funny in what she said> Yes, that’s all my cat will eat. Did your cat eat it?” I respond with the response that I know will end the conversation, “No, my cat hated it.” Finished, right? Wrong. “Well, I have a cat that will only eat dry food but now my other cat is spoiled and will only eat this brand of moist food and it’s 99 cents a can so I only give it to the cat as a treat and my husband thinks I’m crazy <her husband is not alone> because he says that I should put whatever kind down and they’ll eat it when they get hungry enough. I suppose that might be true but I think that I’ll get an extra can because my cat will really enjoy it. What kind of food do you have there?” “Fancy Feast” I reply with no inflection in my voice as to encourage her to continue this conversation on any level. I have finally finished getting all the food I need and as I am almost out the aisle I hear, “How many cats do you have?” As I leave the aisle I look back and say, “Two. Have a nice day.” As my mother always says, “They’ll forgive you anything if you have a strong finish” and as I’ve spent my entire life trying to get people to like me, I have to leave her with a polite parting.

I know that some people would say that this woman was lonely or that she was just trying to connect with another human and I get all that but please don’t try to connect with me over the cat food. (Cocktails maybe but not cat food) I don’t live in Mayberry where everyone knows everyone else for a reason. Maybe if we were even buying the same kind of cat food or if she had said, “Can I ask your opinion?” it would have been different but that whole starter question and the monologue she delivered just put me off. I’m not saying she’s a horrible person or unworthy of conversation with me or anything like that I’m just saying that she chose the wrong person at the wrong time to start a conversation with on this day. I was rushing home after work, needed to get the cat food and wanted to get home. I get that it was probably on me, that I was not fit for human consumption this day but come on people, pick up the context clues, will ya?  

I think it’s more about the weirdness of these cat or dog people, a group that I could tell this woman was a part of, you know, the ones who call them their children, give them the front seat in the car and talk about them non stop. I do have two cats that I adore but I do not consider myself someone who has to spend their entire life talking with strangers as well as people I know about my cats’ activities and how cute they are to me. I get it that it’s like children, you can talk about them with your mate until you’re blue in the face but if you go on and on with anyone else, they’re bound to be bored in the face. I don’t want pot holders with cats on them, I don’t want a “Beware of the cat” sign at my front door and I sure as hell don’t want any porcelain statues of cats from the Franklin Mint. I love my cats but I don’t expect you to love them like I do or want to talk about them. So in retrospect I was probably not as nice as I should have been to this woman and being Jewish I’ll have guilt over it for at least a day but here’s the deal. Just know that not everyone wants to talk to everyone else in the world and sometimes a little space can go a long way. Honestly, I just wanted to buy some cat food – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Harry Potter And My Disappearing Weekend – Don’t Get Me Started!

< Don’t Worry No Spoilers Given – It’s all about me…isn’t everything?>

Long after the initial craze gripped us muggles like a spell cast by Lord You-Know-Who I gave in and picked up a copy of the first Harry Potter book. To let you know how behind the times I was, I didn’t pick up the first book until the first three were out in paperback. I had all my friends telling me I needed to read these books but mostly the requests came from my friends’ children who wanted an adult to discuss the book with and knowing that I have the attention span and mentality of a fourth grader, I was the perfect candidate. I had purchased the first one at an airport on one of my many business trips and upon reading the first one I was hooked. I read the first three than began playing the waiting game with everyone else for the future installments. Well, the last one was delivered to me last week and as I started reading it, I was more than capable of putting it down. That is until this weekend when it was me, Harry Potter and an entire bag of double stuffed mint Oreos (God help me). Harry Potter and my disappearing weekend – Don’t Get Me Started!

Let me say that I had no intention of getting so wrapped up into these books when I started reading them but I just couldn’t help myself. The sad part of course is that the friend whose daughter started me on these books has now moved onto college and left me with no one to discuss the intricacies of Hogwarts with at all. She just laughs at me when I bring it up and in fact when she got the information on her roommate at college for her freshman year, she was disgusted that the girl had listed Harry Potter books as something she was “in to” and she told me that she was all ready hating having to meet her, imagining the girl wanting to start throwing “Potter Parties” in her dorm room – yuck – as if. This was the same girl that was wearing the Potter glasses and fancying herself Hermione just a few years earlier. But alas, much like Peter Pan (because you know of course that I am him) my Wendy grew up, leaving me alone with the lost boys (an enviable position for most gays except for this one who has been with the same man for what will be nineteen years this August).

Now the first few Potter books were easy reads and while I just hated that second book, I managed through it. Then the tomes started coming, the 600 or 700 or 8,000 page books that I could barely hold in my hands let alone carry on a plane. I did curse ol’ JK for making those books so huge (and being an old theatre director at heart I did see some places she could have cut as to have made the pace better) but alas, it didn’t matter because I was hooked. I’ve always known that I have one of those personalities that once I start something I have to finish it, period (some might call it addictive, if you want to get ugly about it). But this also goes for anything like series of books or on television, if I’m watching or reading it, I’m going to see and/or read all of them. Another reason the Gods were smiling on me and didn’t make me Christian for I fear that I would be one of those people who need to have the entire Christmas porcelain village complete with mini flocked trees and tiny shoppers “rushing home with their treasures.” To date, I have managed to not collect anything in a porcelain variety but my mother is the queen of crap that has a certificate of authenticity. It’s supposedly going to make us a fortune one day, these artifacts signed by the artist but I have a feeling a million years from now when my parents pass I’ll be standing in a driveway trying to get someone to take the statues of rabbis with their certificates of authenticity off my hands for quarters on the dollar just to get rid of them at the estate/garage sale.

I had so many hopes for this past weekend, so much that I wanted to do but it began on Friday afternoon when I started really reading the latest Harry Potter. I had managed to put it down and pick it back up just fine for the first two hundred pages but then as I entered into the 300s look out. I couldn’t put it down. Like some strange cursed object it would not leave my hand. (Thank God one of my hands was free to give me sustenance – well if you can call it that – in a matter of three days I would eat an entire large bag of double stuffed mint Oreo cookies) There I was (having not showered or coifed, or even cared unfortunately for my mate) flipping pages, eating another Oreo, wiping the crumbs off of the page before going to the next page and then the whole process started all over again. The book went with me to the bathroom, to the sofa, to the bed and to the floor (as I tried desperately to find a position that was comfortable with this book the size of a Buick). As I laid on the floor, my cat would burrow his face in pages I had all ready read, then he would lay his head on the page I was reading, then in my ignoring him, he’d lay his back lengthwise against the top of the book in such a manner that I was dodging his tail like one of those windmills you encounter on a miniature golf course. He wouldn’t give up and neither would I.

Finally at 5:30pm last night (after cancelling Sunday dinner with my parents) I finished the book. Sure I was sweaty and looked like hell but it was over. I mean, really over. No longer would I have to wonder what happened to these characters, no longer would I have to wait for the next installment like a Star Wars geek. No, it was over and I was glad. I don’t know if I was glad because I had the knowledge of what had happened to the characters or if the anal retentive side of me was just delighted to be able to say that yet another series had been read, completed and was now finished. There was definitely a sense of accomplishment for the reading and yet what was that hideous remorse I was feeling? The Oreos. As I stuffed the empty bag deeper into the garbage and felt a little sick to my stomach, I grabbed my head. Was it the Potter scar burning on my forehead or just something else? Confirmed by the scale at the gym this morning - it was something else – the cookie hangover of a lifetime gave me something even more lasting this weekend – three pounds to work off. Curse you Voldemort, Harry Potter and even all the flipping house elves for the three pounds and even more damaging, a weekend I don’t even recall – a lost weekend. Harry Potter and my disappearing weekend – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Gay Baby Names – Don’t Get Me Started!

A dear friend of mine and her husband (one of the gayest straight men I’ve ever met and I’m betting that he is very excited that he gets to carry a man purse now and call it a “diaper bag”) welcomed their first child into the world and his name is Chance. I think it’s really a different choice for a child’s name. (Not bad different, like my grandmother used to say whenever she didn’t like what you were wearing or your new haircut and she would say, “Well, that’s different” but the tone was such that you knew she just hated it. This is not the different I meant although it’s always the first thought that comes to my mind whenever someone says the word and I immediately get defensive. A Pavlovian response to be sure, all someone has to do is mention the word “different” and I immediately become defensive, hurt and start striking back with full force gay sarcasm. It can be minutes before I hear them say, “Scott, stop I really just meant the color of your shirt was different than anything I’d ever seen.” Embarrassed, I do my best Emily Littella/Gilda Radner, “Oh, that’s very different. Never mind.”) But the more I heard this name, the cooler I thought it was and thought about how names can solicit such a response within us as to send our imaginations wild with what the name suggests the person is or in this case, is going to be when he’s grown. Let’s take this name, Chance. Chance is a kind of preppy guy who looks like an Abercrombie and Fitch sort, right? He’s good looking and well liked with an easy manner about him, right? He’s probably straight but cool that guys find him attractive too, not freaked out by it and doesn’t exploit it.  So in just the same way; I started to think about all the guys with names that say they’re gay right from the get go. (Now true, some gays actually use their middle name to get even gayer than their name already is or there are some who just use the fullness of their name like Stephen instead of Steve or Phillip to gay it up but there are still plenty of people naming their kids names that come with lisp included too, you know, like Bryce.) Do these parents not know they’re setting their kids up? Gay Baby Names – Don’t Get Me Started!

Now before you all get outraged, get over it. And tell me you never thought it was “unfortunate” when a friend named their child, “Oscar” and all you could think of is the fact that he’ll always be compared to the green Muppet that lives in a garbage can or Jack Klugman?

It’s not just “gay” names I don’t get. I don’t get all the made up, pseudo-African names that people are making up left and right. You know like Aquansha or Dasooti. What are these people thinking? These are not people like poor NBA great Anferney Hardaway’s mother who obviously thought she was spelling Anthony, no these people are really going out of their way to come up with stupid names that make no sense. And can anyone explain to me the whole apostrophe atrocities that occur like D’Onfre or D’Mia – me a don’t understand. Finally there are the people who name their children after a product, like Lexus or Perrier because they think the names are “pretty” – dear God people, you have a child here, it’s not a sparkling water and nine times out of ten they end up with the personality of a dead flashlight battery (size D). Not to mention the real tragedy which of course we all know is that they’ll never be able to find a souvenir miniature license plate with their name on it when on vacation!

I was very fortunate that my mother’s first choice of name for me got nixed at the last minute (though I think some of the gayness definitely remained). My name was going to be Seth. A nice name but can you imagine an effeminate boy saying over and over again, “Yeth my name is Seth?” (I can hear you laughing from here – I am too) This may be the only calamity I managed to avoid in my life but even if it’s the only one, at least we know it was a good one. Having been given the name Scott there’s really not much you can do to gay it up other than if I was a twink then I could use, “Scotty” but that’s about it.

Some names are much more gayable than others. Let’s play the gay name game, shall we? First you start out with a name and you gay it up to fit the gay stereotype. (Fill in additional stereotypes and names for fun)

Here we go – Michael

• Twink – Mikey
• Bear – Mike
• Corporate Gay – Michael

 Here’s another one – Robert

• Twink – Bobby
• Bear – Bob or Rob
• Corporate Gay – Robert

 Now see if you can do one – (it’s a little tougher and I’ll put the answers in backward so you can guess first) – William

• Twink – (ylliB)
• Bear – (lliB)
• Corporate Gay  - (mailliW)

 Sometimes when I meet someone I really wonder how their parents knew that they were going to be gay when they gave them such a great gay name but most of the gays did it to themselves by getting a little too creative for their own good. You know the ones who choose the whole first initial and then middle name business because the first name is too common for them (i.e., Michael Blaine Smith becomes M. Blaine Smith) or the ones who initial themselves up to give a little acronym meets army kind of feel that usually ends in an “R”  (i.e., T. R., J.R., etc.). No, we gays just don’t know when to leave good things alone – if there’s a couch we’re putting contrasting throw pillows on it, if it’s our name we’re gaying it up. Although there’s no denying that without their knowledge, sometimes parents help out with the initial canvas that is our name, which sometimes, we later redecorate. Gay Baby Names – Don’t Get Me Started!

 
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Tim Donaghy And Michael Vick Scandals Make Me Happy – Don’t Get Me Started!

Okay, as someone who was never picked to be on any team in school or beyond, I can’t help myself but be a bit giddy as the sports world gets rocked by two major scandals. That’s right, to all the jocks who threw me into lockers, made fun of me or chased me down the hall screaming, “Faggot” I’m so glad that some of your heroes have turned out to be zeros (isn’t that how the old phrase goes?). Let’s face it, when it comes to what are mostly uneducated superstars of the sports world making billions and billions of dollars we should all either reconsider the importance our society puts on sports figures or start throwing a ball immediately (and no, not the kind that Cinderella went to and left a shoe at because you know if that’s the kind of ball we’re talking about I’d all ready be a superstar). Tim Donaghy and Michael Vick scandals make me happy – Don’t Get Me Started!

The Michael Vick scandal (for those who don’t know) is that this big NFL Atlanta Falcons superstar quarterback has been nabbed for running dog fights and brutally killing the losing dogs. I don’t know about you but the whole pit bulls and other dogs being raised to do this kind of fighting is so distasteful to me that I can’t even imagine the scum that go to these things, bet on them and watch as dogs tear one another apart much less the “masterminds” behind arranging and running these things. This is when I start thinking that whole “eye for an eye” thing isn’t so crazy. I say they take those dogs (that usually can’t be re-socialized with other animals or humans) put them in a cage that contains the inhumane idiots like Michael Vick and just let the dogs have at it. (And this is where my true nature as a Scorpio comes out) I really think that these posturing macho idiots who need to raise dogs to be killers to make them feel better about themselves really deserve a taste of their own medicine. I’m not a big fan of the whole cage fighting thing but at least that’s two humans. I mean look at the guys who do that – what else would they really do? They’re so steroided up that their options are limited since they can barely get a pair of jeans over their 75” calves. As I see it they can either train people at a gym, tow cars (without the use of a truck) or cage fight. But they’re humans and know what they’re doing, the dogs don’t and someone needs to put a choke collar on them. (And if it had a little electric shock in it, I wouldn’t mind either)

The Tim Donaghy scandal is that an NBA referee has been caught not only betting on games that he refereed but also possibly doing some point fixing to ensure his bets would pay off. Now I don’t know what these guys get paid but I’m sure they’re not drawing in the salaries of say a Shaq. I’m not saying that they should be able to bet and fix sporting events but honestly, at the end of the day, I’m not losing any sleep because the guy who painted his overweight chest in his NBA team’s colors and is wearing a foam finger doesn’t get to see a “fair” game.

I’m an old school gay who cares more about Broadway than a ballgame. (Which makes me cynical and bitter about these sports figures all at the same time.) I think for anyone to think that any of these sporting events haven’t had “help” along the way are just kidding themselves. The deal is that between the Olympics and Tour De France doping, what, do you think there isn’t this kind of corruption widespread in your favorite sport? Look at the baseball players who have arms as big as houses with foreheads that come out like an awning on a sidewalk café and tell me how they supposedly aren’t on the steroids.

The problem is that we’ve started believing the action movies that had Arnold Schwarzenegger in them in the 80’s and when we were raising the bar on our expectations for our sports heroes we never told them to do it without the use of illegal substances. In fact, we encouraged them to get bigger and better no matter what the personal or societal cost. So, we’re reaping what we sow at this point.

Sports figures and celebrities become rich, famous and celebrated and yes, we all like to see their foot slip a little. Why you ask? Because when the popular kids in school excluded us or jocks beat us up, you just keep telling yourself as you’re picking your books off the ground and wiping their spit off you that what goes around comes around and someday they’ll get theirs. Not every celebrity is Oprah, Bono or Andre Agassi who go above and beyond to help others and make the world a better place. Some are just the dumb jocks and pretty popular people from high school who got lucky. So let Lohan go to jail, “sick” the dogs on Vick and take away Donaghy’s livelihood but at the end of the day, until we start rewarding and celebrating the people who make a difference in our lives and not the people who just got lucky and are soulless losers, we’re doomed to turn out more and more of this type of person. And when they fall from grace we’ll be there like pitbulls because wouldn’t you like to think that good people deserve the riches life has to offer? Wouldn’t you like to see the meek instead of the meatheads inherit the earth? Tim Donaghy and Michael Vick scandals make me happy – Don’t Get Me Started!

 
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Our Next Contestant On Celebrity Drunk Tank Is Lindsay Lohan – Don’t Get Me Started!

I’m done do you hear me? Absolutely done with all of these drunken drugged up celebrities and their multiple violations of driving drunk taking other people’s lives in their unworthy hands (notice I didn’t say anything about the celebs’ lives because if they’re driving drunk they all ready chose to think so little of their own life that I have no real concern for them). When will enough be enough and why are we so forgiving or desperately seeking their photographs? I can’t get excited or even interested in looking at the latest mug shot posted on www.tmz.com and I’m just wondering why everyone else doesn’t feel the same way? Our next contestant on Celebrity Drunk Tank is Lindsay Lohan – Don’t Get Me Started!

From the May 29, 2007 Don’t Get Me Started Blog, here’s my big idea for the Celebrity Drunk Tank…

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.”

As you can see, it would make money and also do something that no one else seems to do when it comes to these drunken celebs, let them know that they’ve gone too far and there’s a price to pay. Who cares if they’re humiliated or their egos are bruised? Didn’t they all ready choose to do that all by themselves getting out of limos drunk without panties or going on racial tirades? Oh, I forgot, Mr. Gibson doesn’t hate Jews (like his father who claims the Holocaust was just made up by the Jews and didn’t really exist) no it was just because he was drunk. Yeah, right.

For years I’ve contemplated becoming an alcoholic because I wanted to be able to say whatever the fuck I want and have my friends and family make excuses for me and enable me. You know, I could say something really vicious and hateful and then my friend would say to the recipient of my poisonous tongue lashing (who is sitting there dazed, shocked and in disbelief that anyone would say what I did), “Oh, I’m so sorry. Scott was never like this before…well before the…you see, it’s just that…well <whispering and doing that shoulders up with cringing face look> it’s the alcohol.” I’d spend my days and nights being perfectly hideous to everyone and blaming the hooch for all of it. What a wonderful dream and I guess that’s what the celebs like about it. They’re never really held accountable. Well, now that I think about…where do I sign up? I promise I won’t drive but I want that whole being nasty and no consequences, having people pay your bills, pick you up off the floor and buy you another round.

You see, I’ve put in forty-two years of “towing the line” and being the good friend, brother, son, spouse to everyone. I don’t miss birthdays (calls, cards and often gifts), I listen to them go on endlessly about shit that doesn’t matter all the while not only acting interested but giving appropriate responses that are much more than how a therapist would respond. No, “uh huh”…”mmm, I see what you mean” here but actual responses (when I can get a word in edgewise). I want to be done with being a good person and become a big drunken shitheel! There’s a line from the Neil Simon movie, Only When I Laugh that James CoCo delivers about wanting to be a big star that applies here. “Oh God, I wanna be a star so bad. I don’t mean a little star; I want to be a big star. With three agents and a business manager and a press agent. And then I would fire all of them and I would hire new ones because I am such a big star. And I would make everybody pay for the twenty-two years I have poured into this business. I wouldn’t do benefits, I wouldn’t give money to charities; I would become one of the great shitheels of all time. Isn’t that a wonderful dream, Georgia?”

Of course there are more than a few problems with this plan. You see I’m not all that fond of the taste of alcohol and when I do drink it has to be a good brand otherwise I’m not getting involved at all. A Grey Goose or Belvedere extra extra extra dirty martini straight up with blue cheese olives is about as serious as I get when it comes to alcoholic beverages. Usually it’s cranberry and Absolut (because it helps the urinary tract at the same time) or something that tastes as little like alcohol as possible, like a Mojito or some other frilly drink. (But the frilly drinks are killer to throw up so they’re out for this plan)

You see, us Jews don’t drink on the whole, we eat. We get drunk on a good buffet with white fish and some decent lox instead of Heinekens. The next reason I couldn’t do it is because I couldn’t be passing out all over God’s creation. (See pic of Nick Nolte’s recent pass out in the airport from tmz.com) Finally, it would make me smoke cigarettes. Like most gays, I like having a cocktail (say the full word, boys) and a cigarette to gesture with in hopes of being just a little more like Bette Davis. Oh, make no mistake about it; I don’t want to mince around in drag. I just want to have a cocktail and cigarette in the same hand, pointing at people and saying things like, “You…yes, you over there. <takes drag off cigarette and sip from martini then blowing smoke in someone else’s general direction> what the hell have you got on? You’ve got to be over forty and you’re going sleeveless with capris on? I don’t care what your grandmother wore putting the clothes out on the line, you look like a smacked ass! Has anyone ever told you that? <changes the cocktail into the other hand, takes another drag off the cigarette then flicks the ashes pointedly> Well now someone has! Get out of my sight, you!” Okay, don’t normally explain stuff like this but that last dialogue is very funny to me on many levels 1) I’ve gotten more shit about the forty and sleeveless blog than any other blog I’ve written (read it here with all the comments… http://hubpages.com/hub/Do_Not_Go_Sleeveless_After_Forty_Just_Trust_Me_On_This_One ) 2) My grandmother did wear sleeveless blouses all the time and yes, while putting the clothes out on the line and 3) My other grandmother used to use the phrase “You look like a smacked ass” whenever I wore something she didn’t think was nice or appropriate.

I’ve read all the comments people leave on websites about how they feel so badly for Lindsay Lohan or Paris or even Mel Gibson but I don’t feel one bit sorry for them. I don’t want to hear about the pressures they have because I could make any of their stupid shit look like a walk in the park. I think it’s time we let Lindsay Lohan slip into obscurity. Do we really need her? I don’t think so. I’m actually surprised that the execs at VH1 haven’t thought about the whole Celebrity Drunk Tank show all ready. (But remember kids, you heard it here first so when they create it I can sue – cause after all, that’s what we Jews do, right?) Our next contestant on Celebrity Drunk Tank is Lindsay Lohan – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Hand Sanitizer Martini Anyone? – Don’t Get Me Started!

Okay, so a newsletter I write for (Sierra Gay Mens’ Network News & Blog www.sgmn.org) in their August edition is featuring a story about how “kids” are getting drunk on the hand sanitizer (I don’t know why but my family has always but “the” in front of everything – the drugs, the show business, the whatever). I was shocked and appalled (yes, both at the same time – it looks like one eyebrow raised, the mouth slightly open and in some cases a clutching of the imaginary pearls around your neck). I mean, I still don’t get the whole huffing of spray paint thing and now the kids are replacing Pina Coladas by going for the Purell? What will these crazy kids come up with next?  I don’t know about you but I did a lot of crazy things in my youth but I was never a glue eater or sniffer (okay maybe an occasional sniff of the model airplane glue but I always had to go to my brother to get it as I never graduated from the Snap-tite model series) and I seriously doubt I would be “drinking” (or chewing thanks to the texture of the stuff) hand sanitizer. Hand sanitizer martini anyone? – Don’t Get Me Started!

According to the story, kids are really getting sick on this stuff because the concentration of alcohol is so high that they are getting alcohol poisoning as well as sloppy drunk. And the thing is that the parents are thinking that their kids have concussions or something because who would suspect their kid of being Foster Brooks? No, Johnny must have hit his head on something. Not until they get them to the hospital are they finding out their toddlers are Lindsay Lohaneriffic. The other thing about this new craze is that some of the hand sanitizers have rubbing alcohol in them, which means that besides getting drunk, you’re ingesting a poisonous substance. And it isn’t just the kids that are drinking the hand sanitizer apparently drunks are finding it’s cheaper than ripple or Boone’s Farm. I remember the stories of drunks straining rubbing alcohol through a piece of white bread during The Depression. (And for those of you who are just catty bitches out there, NO I was not around for The Depression but I read, thank you very much and although I tend to be overdramatic I would never go so far as to call my “blue” days The Great Depression!)

The main thing about all of this (and the reason for this blog) is to let you know of yet another thing you can’t (or um…well, shouldn’t) put in your mouth. I’m sure you can all come up with a list on your own (not only of things that you shouldn’t put in your mouth but also people, places and things that have actually been in your mouth that you’re not all that proud of, yes?) so you don’t need my help there.

I’ve never liked the hand sanitizer craze even in its intended use. Some people are so hooked on it they’re worse than the Chap Stick and nose spray addicts. Have you ever been around an H.S.A. (Hand Sanitizer Addict)? I have and I have to say that it isn’t pretty. They are constantly pulling (you’ll excuse the expression) their little pink bottle out and rubbing it all over their hands like they’re a villain in a cartoon that just invented a new way to take over the world or something. Due to all the alcohol their hands are usually all dried out, red and chapped and to me, there’s no reason (as long as there’s moisturizer in this world) for anyone to be walking around all chapped (disclaimer - unless of course it’s a medical condition). Quick check your elbows! Speaking of chapped can someone explain to me why people who have the most dried out and chapped feet in the world feel the need to share them with the world by wearing flip flops or sandals? Surely you must know how bad your feet look so do you think that any of us want to look at them? Time to loofah and Lubriderm – repeat as needed.

But back to the matter at hand (get it?). There are no laws to not sell the hand sanitizer to kids (or drunks) so apparently some are having quite the time of it. However, let’s face it; these are people who are acting out in The Great Desperation. I can’t imagine with all the tasty drinks out there that people would give up their beloved Dirty Martinis for even the nicest scented hand sanitizers. I mean can you imagine the “Sweet Citrus Screwdriver” (be careful gays that was an awful lot of “S’s”) or the “Lavender and Chamomile Kamikaze” for those more quiet reflective times. Call me old fashioned but to me, there are some things that just shouldn’t be used for other purposes than they were intended. It reminds me of a gal pal of mine who was having a passionate time with herself and out of desperation grabbed a perfume bottle with an ornate top. Long story short, she ended up in the emergency room trying to explain why she had the top to her Chloe up her…well, you get the idea. So kids, take my advice…leave well enough alone. Leave the Chloe bottle on the perfume, things out of your mouth that have no business being there and the hand sanitizer on your hands. Hand sanitizer martini anyone? – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Weather Related Aches And Pains – Don’t Get Me Started!

I’ve never minded the whole growing old thing. I was never a “twink” turned into “boy toy” turned into “otter” then to “bear” – no, I have not followed the natural progression of the evolution of a gay man and that’s just okay with me. I have always been a short, dark and ethnic kid and that’s how I continue to see myself. You know, the Jewish Peter Pan! However, two days ago my knees started killing me. (Boys, get those minds up out of the gutter, please) I had no idea what could be causing such pain. I hadn’t worked out enough in the prior week to cause such problems and I couldn’t remember doing anything else that would remotely make my knees hurt. Then I saw the weather forecast. We here in Vegas are entering our yearly monsoon season and the first big wave was headed our way. Could it be? Could I have become one of those old people barometers for weather? Ugh. Weather related aches and pains – Don’t Get Me Started!

The Vegas monsoon season is yet another mystery of life that I don’t want to figure out. I had always thought that monsoons needed to be in tropical climates with some water near it but who knew? Having lived through them now monsoons just mean it’s 112 degrees and raining like I need to build an ark. Within a matter of minutes the road can go from being paved to a river. It’s fascinating (if you’re inside watching old Bette Davis movies) but if you have to drive in it, you’re basically screwed. The one good thing is that much like the Wicked Witch of the West, it appears to be the only thing that Vegas drivers are afraid of and will actually drive a bit more carefully or dare I say, drive properly. And that’s a good thing.

Well, it was such a shock to me when I woke up a couple of days ago and was walking around like Jack Wild doing his “Mechanical Boy” number from H.R. Puffenstuff or the Tin Man (everyone’s least favorite character) pre-oiling. Immediately I went through the prior three days to see if anything had occurred that would make me feel this way. Had I bent down to lift anything? No, completely safe in that category. Had I done squats at the gym? Come on who was I kidding considering even suggesting that I ever did squats at the gym? (I made myself giggle a bit on that one) And finally it dawned on me when I went out to get the morning paper that it was humid and since it’s never humid it must be a storm a coming. (Isn’t that what they say in all the old movies?)

Immediately I was disgusted. I started thinking about the times (back in the day) when my grandmother had rubbed her elbow and said, “Yup, there’s going to be a storm in the next couple of days. I can feel it in my bones.” I had just always thought that this was a tactic older people used when they had run out of things to say. It made them seem like they were a bit mystical and magical instead of kvetches that were pains in the ass. I mean, come on, what were they, like animals that instinctively went crazy before a storm because they knew it was a coming? And what did this mean to me, having never lived on a farm (or wanted to live on a farm)? Did this mean I was going to have to get an Old Farmer’s Almanac and start living my life according to ancient farmer superstitions and wives tales or did it just mean that I should start a new business becoming the Miss Cleo of a physic weather network? Everything about this recent turn of events was depressing and worse, a little painful.

I guess the worst part is that what do I tell people as I continually rub my knees? (I don’t know what this rubbing actually does for them other than to “heat” them up a bit due to the friction but I’ve seen other people do it so it must do something). I mean no one would believe that it was an old sports injury (I’m laughing at myself right now just thinking about trying to deliver this explanation to anyone with a straight face). I couldn’t say that it was a war injury because the closest I ever came to war was playing the card game with my brother as a kid or fighting over a sweater with a boy half my age at Banana Republic (I won) but in the end it would have probably looked better on him. When you tell people that you used to be a dancer, they just sort of give you the whole body scan and you can see exactly what they’re thinking…”Dancer, yeah, right…since when does dancing around to a Madonna song in your bedroom singing into a hairbrush make you a dancer? And considering Vogue really only involved the upper body, why do his knees hurt?” No, there’s no good excuse for someone like me so I guess I have to go with the dreaded, “Because I’m old.” Ugh.

Now before you all start writing in telling me that I should use cold or hot compresses, drink eel semen or take a supplement that I couldn’t even come close to pronouncing let me say that I’m all about the herbal remedies but physicians heal thyselves. I’m sure there’s some magic potion out there that some sheepherder found in the Himalayans and is only available on QVC but for now I’m just going to go with plain old Motrin. I love the Motrin. I don’t care if I have to crunch it up and snort it, it’s the only answer I have at this point and don’t they always say, “Do what you know?”

I can only hope that the storms pass soon because being gay and having knee problems is too good a set up even for those people who don’t normally tell jokes. (There are so many gay knee jokes going through my head at the moment I can barely keep typing.) So enough all ready, I’ll just have to face the fact that when a storm is a coming so will the knee pain because I’m old and as the alcoholics say, “Lord grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the drugs not to give a shit about knowing the difference.” Isn’t that how it goes? Weather related aches and pains – Don’t Get Me Started!

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My Mother Wants To Know Why I’m Not Perez Hilton – Don’t Get Me Started!

In a tone that verged on the edge of sounding like, “Why can’t you be more like your brother and take math seriously?” (This tactic was never used in my home as after all, we’re Jews we have better guilt guns than that, please. My parents always accepted that my brother and I were as different as different could be and how could they not? They themselves are the living, breathing version of the Green Acres couple so they know a little something about two different types of people loving and respecting one another…”Dahling I love you but give me Park Avenue.” You can read all about it on my All About Scott page here… http://www.somelikeitscott.com/somelikeitprologue.html ) But in a conversation yesterday my mother was going through her daily re-cap of the shows she watched, the roster of celebs she liked and didn’t like (and even managed pronounced one or two of their names correctly) she asked a question that left me a bit stunned. She always feels like Ponce de Leon, a great explorer supposedly discovering uncharted territories but much like Ponce, she has never quite found anything notable that anyone else didn’t all ready know about. You know, like Ponce finding Florida but never finding the Fountain of Youth. Well, she recently “discovered” Ross the Intern from Jay Leno, Celebrity Fit Club and Rosie’s blogs and then yesterday saw Perez Hilton on something. And in her own Mama Rose way, she said, “What is it with all these gays getting their own shows? You’re so much funnier and talented. I don’t understand it. Do you know that Perez Hilton gets something like four million hits a day on his website? Why can’t you be Perez Hilton? He’s a pig.”  My mother wants to know why I’m not Perez Hilton – Don’t Get Me Started!

As I said in a previous blog, to me, Perez Hilton is the Gay Anime Barney Rubble. He’s one big Neanderthal looking block of cheese with blue hair that has his sidekick glued to his fingers no doubt sending out very important text messages trying to “out” the Indian boy who Bobby Brady brought the baked beans to in a flashlight in the Grand Canyon Brady Bunch episode. (Kids if you’re my age, Bobby and the Indian boy were the original Brokeback Mountain…er Canyon boys!) That’s right, Perez prides himself on having no pride outing celebrities and drawing doodles on their pictures. I must admit that I’ve never been to his site (and don’t expect to any time soon) but this is the word on the street about what he does and his dare we call it, “his claim to fame?” The problem with this is that he is not the Rona Barrett or Hedda Hopper (see Hopper’s photo in the upper left corner of this page) of the day, he’s just a loud mouthed (getting larger every day) bitchy queen trying to bring the celebs down to his size (which from the looks of it is about 475 pounds at the moment).

In a very sad moment for gays everywhere (and the women who love them), Kathy Griffin put this rectangle with Colorforms hair on her show. How could she do that to us gays? That’s right, in order to get some paparazzi time or “paps” (as Kathy learned to say in London) she made a public appearance with Perez and all his fattitude. And yes, Perez was able to get some photographers to take their picture when they left the restaurant so “mission accomplished” I guess but come on Kathy, let me say what your own mother would say to you, “You’re better than that now aren’t you?” Don’t make us gays turn on you now.

Not to get too Oliver Stone conspiracy theory on you but I find it very interesting that the gays that are “making it” as of late are only the ones that fit the stereotypical image of gays from a 1955 Confidential Magazine article. That’s right, unless you’re a lisping, swishing and wrist dangling queen, no press time for you. Could it be that we gays are becoming more accepted in the many different varieties we come in or allow me to go all Agatha Christie on you for a moment and theorize that the straight executives (who talk frequently with Jesus) are (as my mother would say) planning their work and working their plan?

You see, if they can make us gays look really repulsive (even to us gays) then everyone might soon start saying, “Hmmm…well, the gays weren’t bad when they were tweezing the eyebrows on that cute little makeover show on cable or that Will and Grace show where we never had to think about them having sex but these gays are going too damn far now, Mildred. They are loud, obnoxious and they don’t even dress nicely anymore. No, I don’t want to see gays on television or anywhere else for that matter if this is the way they behave. They should not be seen or heard.” The thing is that some of us “normal” gays don’t want to see or hear it either.

Whether it’s a 23 year old manager from The Gap giving advice (and constantly playing with his bad haircut) online, Perez Hilton thinking he’s swishing his cell phone mightier than his sword, these people really don’t represent many of the gays I know, have written into my site or I’ve talked with recently. So why are they all over and practically they only gay images we see? And why are even gay execs (are you listening Bravo?) catering to these queens turned court jesters?
 

I saw a woman outside a church in LA being interviewed about the record setting settlement against the archdiocese there for the over 100 people who came forward about being abused by clergy. Her statement was something like, “I think a lot of these allegations are not true. And for those that are…well…I would tell them that they need to forgive.” She disgusted me. (Although I think I could forgive too for a million – cut me in) Could it be that whenever things start going not so well for church and straight that they look for a diversionary tactic to parade us gays out? Stop and think about it for a moment. Mad at the President over the war? Let’s bring out the fact that a senator was texting young boys. (Even though it was going on for years, notice when it came out in the press) See…it’s The Gays, not the President you should mad at…see those bad gays and how they recruit? And in some cases they get rid of two groups at once like with the whole media attention around the Isaiah Washington scandal where they took out gays and blacks with one stone. Oh my God, I AM turning into Oliver Stone.

The thing is that I wouldn’t mind if this Perez person was harmless but who is he to decide when someone should come out and why should he (like the paparazzi) be getting so much money to be so evil? Well, I don’t have the answers, just the questions on this one but I have to say that I won’t be clicking on his site and I’ll be turning the channel when Perez gets his own show this fall and eventually gets wheeled into the Celebrity Fit Club no doubt. I don’t know if I have sufficiently answered the question or not but for the hair and size alone, I will never be Perez Hilton – thank you, Jesus. My mother wants to know why I’m not Perez Hilton – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Ex-Gays Go Broadway? I Don’t Think So! – Don’t Get Me Started!

Today on Queerty.com (a site that I did write an article for once and now they’ve blocked me from being able to leave comments on the site…hmm…I know we didn’t sleep together so it can’t be that I was bad in bed or something….hmmmm…well, another matter for another day.) At any rate there’s an entry about how the ex-gays are lighting up the gay white way. Ex-gays go Broadway? I don’t think so – Don’t Get Me Started!

A wacko group claiming to “cure” gays of their homosexuality is running secret meetings for closeted Broadway stars, according to a new documentary, “Gay No More?” Bill Hussung - who produced and directed the film with his wife, Mashara Canino-Hussung - says audiences will be “shocked” to see 20 popular Broadway dancers and actors who belong to the Life Ministry support group meeting twice weekly in underground locations. “It’s an ex-gay movement with the core belief that you are gay because of a sexual trauma in your background. When you discover what that is, you can release it and be cured of gay desires,” Hussung said. “People will be shocked to learn how widespread among the New York theater community this is.”

You can read the piece from the link below and maybe even include comments (unlike me…God it’s good that bitter looks so good on me.) http://www.queerty.com/news/ex-gays-on-bway-20070719/

Okay as I’ve quoted many times before from Mel Brooks’ To Be Or Not To Be, “Without Jews, Gypsies and Faggots there would be no theatre!” I worked in theatre for a lot of years and yes, I can tell you that a lot of people get into this profession to get the attention and “love” that they couldn’t get from their parents, friends or lovers. They somehow feel that the applause is acceptance and love (and it is in a way). So I get that, actors, singers and dancers are a creative bunch but are just as or more screwed up than the general population. So I can see where the “cure” people could easily work their “magic” on these emotionally challenged and weakened people because the ex-gays are no different than a cult.

To those who are living in this day and age and are so afraid of being gay, I say shame on you. I’m not saying you have to come out or have Perez Hilton out you. (God, how awful is he? Thanks for setting us gays back another twenty years in the evolution of our species with your bitchy queen attitude, ridiculous swishing, dyed hair that makes you look like the gay anime Barney Rubble and generally being an embarrassment for all of us.) But it’s not 1950 when gays were not allowed to be seen or heard. With the help of reality television, Bravo and Lifetime you can’t turn the television on without seeing “a gay.”

I know, I get it, it’s an inner struggle. It’s something that people must come to in their own time, blah, blah, blah. But if you’re reading this (and looking over your shoulder for fear of the ex-gay police are coming to get you) all I’m asking is that you try to accept yourself. Hell even if you’re not gay, if you’re seven hundred pounds and wearing capris and a sleeveless top – accept yourself. If you’re six foot and one hundred pounds, accept yourself (and eat something, will you? What? You think that looks nice to be so bone thin? What are you a skeleton in a biology class? – Oh dear God, I’ve just become my Jewish mother!) Until we all start accepting ourselves, we’re going to constantly look for validation in all the wrong places. You know, like ex-gay cults, Paris Hilton for whatever we’re supposed to get out of her, and Britney Spears for what underwear not to wear.

What I’ve found is that shockingly enough, not that many people are so shocked by the gay thing anymore. (Exception – the South…the people who brought you Mammies, slavery and lynchings…see Gone With The Wind) So I find it shocking that the ex-gays are still waging a war that A) they have no chance of winning and B) that they’re the only ones who think it’s important to segregate, denigrate and fumigate one type of people. (Wait…a pattern emerges…could these people be from the south? (Okay, enough southern bashing for one blog, for the sake of the Designing Women cast – again, Lifetime Television for women and the gays who love them)

Bottom line, there’s a reason it’s been called the “Gay White Way” (later changed to the “Great” White Way) and no group of twenty misguided singers, dancers and actors that are taken down into the sewer system for clandestine meetings are going to make Broadway un-gay. (Wow, sounds like a new concept for a new grittier Phantom of the Opera…maybe that’s what they’re using against us…they sit the Broadway gays in a room and make them listen over and over to the Music Of The Night lyrics…”Let your mind start a journey through a strange new world, leave all thoughts of the life you knew before. Let your soul take you where you want to be!” Oh my God, how scary is it that without changing one word it totally applies? I’m scared. Quick see if they can say, “Masquerade” without lisping or at least lingering on the “S” sound…whew, safe…still gay. What do you hear when you play the Phantom CD backwards? “God hates fags?!” Well, we know that’s not true, God doesn’t really hate fags but I understand he wasn’t all that wild about Cats!)

At any rate I think that as long as Harvey Firestein is around Broadway is safe from the ex-gays and to those who are trying to not be gay, I wish you a lot of luck (and could you take Lance Bass with you? He’s on my last nerve and he’s going to Broadway into the cast of Hairspray – get him!). Ex-gays go Broadway? I don’t think so – Don’t Get Me Started!

 
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At Least Ten Reasons I Wouldn’t Make A Good Male Prostitute! – Don’t Get Me Started!

A friend of mine used to say that in his next life he wanted to come back as either a fat Soprano or a gorgeous dumb hunk who was hung to his knee. We used to fantasy about being the latter and how much money we could make as a prostitute and revel in the fact that we would be too dumb to have his Catholic or my Jewish background to cause us the enormous guilt that we felt would be associated with this profession if we did it in this life. He recently got liposuction and supposedly looks fabulous. Of course, it’s not the same as being hung to your knee but it does make him more attractive and although I prefer to shape my body naturally (going to the gym and trying to stay away from ice cream sandwiches) I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was jealous. But I want to stay completely natural in my body sculpting so that I won’t be disqualified from the Gay Games. (Okay, let’s face it; the only way that I’m going to the Gay Games is if they create a “Name That ShowTune” team. Which, by the way I’m sure I would score a perfect 10!) So while I was at the gym this morning, seeing all the men who probably could be (and since it’s Vegas, probably are) prostitutes, the list in my head started forming of all the reasons I could never be a prostitute, at least not in this life. So allow me to present at least ten reasons I wouldn’t make a good male prostitute! – Don’t Get Me Started!

1.  What would my mother say? I remember when I was an actor and she would tell people. Their response was always the same, “Oh, really…hmm…well, where does he act?” (said with great sarcasm) My mother would list my credits like a good agent but let’s face it, unless you’re on Law And Order no one thinks you could possibly be “acting” and be successful. So imagine what she would say if I was a prostitute and what the people would say, “Hmmm…oh, a prostitute eh, so where does he ‘tute’?” Not good.
2. I don’t have the right clothes. You know how some people look better naked and some look better in clothes? I don’t fall into either of these categories. The last article of clothing that looked great on me was a pair of Mouseketeer ears, and while I’m sure some people would be attracted to that from a kinky point of view, for me, it’s just the only hat that looks good on me and covers my bald spot better than a yarmulke. The thought of trying to feel good about myself in assless chaps just makes the whole endeavor seem even more than a little impossible for me.
3. I have a thing about cleanliness. I would be scrubbing my “dates” down like Meryl Streep in Silkwood and boiling them before they could even touch me. Imagine the turn off that would be? Much less the thought of me using that “hand sanitizer” on every part of their body before we could do anything. “Oh, you like your nipples played with? Oh, shit, where did that sanitizer go? Look under your ass for me, will ya?”
4. I would want my “services” to have catchy names. You know, like they do in famous delis, where they name the sandwiches after a celebrity? On my menu would be things like the Ethel Merman – For this service I would wear bright red lipstick, keep my mouth in a perfect “o” position and at the moment of climax I would do the end of “Rose’s Turn” from Gypsy, “For me, for me, for me…FORRR MEEEEE!” Or the Ben Affleck – A lot of sucking but not all that much talent.
5. I couldn’t imagine licking the ass of someone I don’t know (or of many of the people that I DO know either). Enough said.
6. While I’d like to think that I would be a high priced prostitute, I realize that I would probably be more like Morty the discount sock vendor at a flea market. The metal change belt would probably pinch the hell out of my naked skin as I made change for my customers.
7. I would haggle too much with my pimp. I can hear the conversation now. “Listen Meat, I’m telling you, that guy was so huge that I felt like one of those women in Mexico who get fucked by the horses. I need a little money for a massage or at the very least one of those doughnut cushions to sit on. And that other guy I did tonight, I’m telling you that I got carpal tunnel from him. I felt like Aunt Eller in the beginning of the musical Oklahoma, I was “churning the butter” for what seemed like hours but never got anything more than a dribble of clotted cream! Do you have the workman’s comp forms? My wrist is killing me.”
8. I’m too much of an organizer. I would probably have a union set up within weeks of working as a prostitute. I’d spend more time on the phone with the other prostitutes than with clients. I’d like to think of myself as the Norma Rae of prostitutes. “Listen Harry, you don’t have to stand for that shit (literally – after all, you told the “John” you’d only do the piss thing) look I’m going to call a guy I know and he’s going to really beat the shit out of that guy, how is that? And next time, you really need to be more clear in the initial negotiations, will you do that for me? And think about changing your name, Harry Restroom…I mean, come on…what do you think people are going to think with a name like that? Of course the think they can shit on you with a name like that! No, I’m not saying you should use your real last name, Berenstein, too much like that kids book about the bears. Just consider something like Harry Rod, even that would be better, will you?”
9. I have a really short attention span and I have a feeling that prostitutes are involved with orgies (and having never been involved in one in my life), not only do I think I would be shocked and doing a lot of inappropriate giggling (a nervous condition I’ve had since I was a youth. You know when you’re over a friend’s house as a kid and they’re getting yelled at? I would get so nervous that I would laugh – it always got me an invitation to the door and my friends in bigger trouble but I couldn’t and can’t help it to this day, it’s just my defense mechanism.) So even if I had my giggles under control, I think I would be distracted by all the wrong things. You know, like everyone would be getting naked and I would be asking where they got their jeans, who the designer was and how much they paid. Or I can see me saying things like, “Oh, a cock ring with crystals on it…now are those Swarovski? Is it hard to keep them so shiny? I mean the lube must really dull the sparkle. Oh look at that guy’s harness. I swear, feel it, it’s as soft as butter. Now that’s nice leather. It’s a shame he didn’t have a coat made out of it or something you can wear when you’re not, well, you know, just at an orgy.” Yeah, I can’t see them wanting me to be part of the orgy for long…ten minutes and I’d have a ball gag in my mouth and be hogtied in a corner.
10. I’m too needy. Afterward I would be asking my tricks way too many questions. “So you really liked it when I arched my back? You can tell me, I mean we don’t really even know one another so although I’ll be a little offended, I won’t be crushed. And what about when I howled at the moon? Turn on or turn off? So you like me? You really like me?”

No. I don’t see a future for me (in this life anyway) as a male prostitute. I’m not as pretty as Richard Gere in American Gigolo and while the thought of the crack allowing me to finally be “gay thin” is appealing, I can’t see myself injecting myself as I’m less a hypodermic freak and more a hypochondriac. So I’ll never be a crack whore. I’ll never be any kind of whore at all and for that there are several “Johns” sighing a collective sigh of relief because let’s face it, can you imagine me showing up at your hotel door? I can’t either. I’m sure there are more but these were at least ten reasons I wouldn’t make a good male prostitute! – Don’t Get Me Started!

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I Don’t Care What Paris Hilton Wears…Your Sunglasses Are Too Big – Don’t Get Me Started!

I know that this is going to just be really shocking to a lot of people but while I subscribe to certain trends, there are others that I think someone somewhere is making up just to see how ridiculous they can make celebs and laypeople alike look and whether or not we will grab the bait. Like a lot of industries, there’s not ever all that much that is “new” in the fashion biz. (Though “insiders” and designers will tell you differently because after all, their livelihood depends upon all of us buying what they’re selling.) If you look at even the most avant-garde collections, you’ll see hints of past designers and/or trends. It’s as if all the big designers have a collection of old movie magazines, flip through it once a season and then get on the phone with one another proclaiming, “It’s forties again this year – get out the shoulder pads!” Sure they deconstruct it and make it look ragged and a little different but put a pair of platform sling back pumps with it and you’re Joan Crawford in Mildred Pierce. Well, as with yesterday’s post (on the men’s faux hawk hairstyle that needs to go away), there’s a trend that I have decided needs to go away as well. I don’t care what Paris Hilton wears…your sunglasses are too big – Don’t Get Me Started!

Although the young think that Paris and her gang started this trend; for those of us who have lived on the planet for more than ten minutes we know that Jackie Onassis Kennedy started this in the sixties. For some of us, the pictures of America’s queen on the yacht of her second husband with those big glasses are forever etched in our minds as the height of fashion, glamour and wealth. It worked on her and even with Paris’ a little (even though they still just look silly on her small face and frame) because she’s for better or worse, a celebrity but it has now filtered down to the $.99 store set and I’m sorry to say, that most are NOT able to pull it off.

Now before I start getting all the comments about how I’m being mean, cruel, don’t get it, I’m a bad friend, no one should listen to me, “my mother looks good in sleeveless tops and big glasses you asshole” (Read that blog here and especially the comments here… http://hubpages.com/hub/Do_Not_Go_Sleeveless_After_Forty_Just_Trust_Me_On_This_One ), etc. hear me out, kids. All I’m saying is that as with anything else, not every look is for everybody. I accept that I personally will never be wearing a pair of low riding jeans (showing the non-existent “V” down to my crotch area) with a cropped Abercrombie and Fitch t-shirt exposing the upper portion of my non-existent six pack abs. I get it that while the rest of the guys are wearing knit caps with a skull on them looking cool if I put one on I look as if I’m the guy from the Spirit of ’76 painting with the bandage on his head instead of an outlaw that rides motorcycles.

(Me in a knit cap - I'm the one on the right!!)

Let’s all agree that not everyone looks good in every trend that the fashionistas roll out and tell us we can’t live without.

I have never been a fan of the celebs who wear sunglasses on award or on talk shows. It’s pretentious and usually they aren’t even that much of a celebrity so I wonder what in the hell they can be thinking. It doesn’t make you look “hot” it just makes all of us think that even the best makeup man in the world couldn’t do anything about your drugged up looking eyes from days and days of doing coke or whatever is the current drug of choice and that you have bags under you eyes that would hold enough clothes to take you on a two week vacation through Europe. So it makes it worse to me when I see the thirty-something woman in the Starbucks who refuses to take off her enormo-glasses to order her morning coffee. Um…hello? Look around there are no paparazzi here and would you really want them getting a shot of your ass in those polyester “dress” capris you’re wearing and that top that doesn’t cover your bulging stomach? Show some courtesy, get off the cell phone, take off the glasses, order your latte and move on. I encountered such a woman the other day in my Starbucks. You know the kind I’m talking about, she is that overly loud woman on the cell phone who is trying to be trendy but as they say, “You can take the girl out of the trailer park but you can’t take the trailer park out of the girl” (especially when she insists upon wearing white capris with an ass the size of a double-wide)! She has ordered (never getting off the phone or taking off the sunglasses that make her look like a bug woman from a low budget 1960’s horror film) and she’s going on and on to the person on the phone about, “Yeah, I know. I don’t want to go over there because you know, he comes from a big EYE-talian family and they are so loud and eat a lot of pasta. You know how those EYE-talians can be.” You could see people just staring at her and as she left there was an audible sigh of relief by all.

There are so many things wrong with the above scenario but the part I’m focusing on today is that with it all, she had on these enormous glasses (that had some missing rhinestones on the side of them) that had visible smears all over the lenses and a fake designer logo on the sides. They were almost as big as her head (though not as big as her ass because even the Capri pants were having difficulty being as big as that) and just looked cheap and dumb. She didn’t look like Jackie O, she didn’t look like Paris Hilton she just looked like another victim of the fashion knock-off industry.

While the thirty-somethings should know better you just have to just shake your head when you see a fourteen year old who is all of 5 feet tall and 75 pounds wearing the huge sunglasses that make it look as though she is Mike TeeVee from the Willy Wonka movie or that she was in some strange laboratory mishap that has left her with the body of a six year old and she needs the huge sunglasses due to the radiation poisoning from the accident. These poor kids think they’re Paris, they’re not but God love them for trying.

My point is that we’ve all put up with the radiation glasses for more than a few years now. Isn’t it time for them to go away? I’m not asking that we go all the way back to the tiny Lennon sunglasses (that made everyone look like one of the three blind mice) but couldn’t the fashion industry give us something a little newer? Maybe go back to the wrap skier sunglasses or the Revos or even the Vuarnet glasses (remember when everyone wore these)? As for me, I’m a classic “aviator” sunglass guy – long live the Ray-Ban! All I’m really asking is that if you wear these big glasses just take a good look at yourself in the mirror. Are they right for you or do you wear them because Paris has them? I don’t care what Paris Hilton wears…your sunglasses are too big – Don’t Get Me Started!

 
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Please Boys, Tell Me We Are Done With The Faux Hawk – Don’t Get Me Started!

We have all been through a lot of crazy hairstyles through the years. God knows, all you have to do is look on this page to see that I had some of the biggest Duran Duran/Flock of Seagulls dos in my day. Through the years I’ve had to pick and choose (like you do at a flea market’s box full of crap stuff where you think you’re going to get a deal) to figure out which styles I could wear, which I should wear, and which I just wore because I liked even though I knew they looked pretty bad on me. The faux hawk hairstyle is not one that I ever wore or would wear because frankly all that pointy head business just makes me feel like some cartoon character (yeah, I get it that is why some people do wear this do). But like everything else its season has passed and now I’m just asking…please boys, tell me we are done with the faux hawk – Don’t Get Me Started!

Now this is not something that keeps me up late at night or anything but yesterday I saw a guy and it dawned on me that it is time for this hair don’t to go away. The guy was probably in his early thirties and was as big as a house (God love him). He had an enormous t-shirt on that was cascading down the front of him like someone using a tarp to cover a large boulder they’re moving covering his extended stomach. He had denim shorts on that were a little too long so it gave him even more of the appearance of a little kid (well, a BIG little kid), you know, someone who would live on the next block over from Charlie Brown but was never featured in the Strip. He was white, white whiter than white and you could see his enormous calves go right into his foot without the apparent need of an ankle. On his feet were a classic…Birkenstocks. As I panned back up this mountain that was coming toward me, I couldn’t believe what I saw. This guy with enormously pale skin had blacker than black hair and a perfected pointy tiny faux hawk on his head. I mean, it looked like he had just stepped out of the salon, every hair was in place. But here’s the deal, because his complexion was so pasty, he looked like a big dollop of sour cream or something with that thing on the top of his head. Ooh wait, not sour cream, he looked liked one of those cookies that I think are peanut butter, have an indentation in them and then they put a Hershey’s kiss in the middle of it on the top. Do you know which ones I’m talking about? Well, regardless of the food item, the guy just looked re-damn-diculous! Like a Bob’s Big Boy for the New Wave set.  I so wanted to tell him that by putting such a vertical line at the top of his head didn’t make him look slimmer or anything, just goofy but I couldn’t go up to a stranger and say such things (I reserve that kind of stuff for my friends).

Then I had to wonder if he had any friends who felt comfortable enough to tell him how he really looked with that hair? My friends never have any trouble telling me how bad my hair is, in fact one friend made an appointment for me at some salon on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills when I was there one weekend and made me go (and pay the $145) claiming that my hair was an embarrassment and that I needed professional help. The haircut incidentally was very good but hardly worth the price tag in my opinion. Plus it was such a high tone salon that the assistants had assistants so although I’ve been around salons my whole life, I was so uncomfortable not knowing know who you were supposed to tip, thank or even look at. I was not prepared for the assistant to evaluate my hair, having another assistant take me over to get shampooed (creating a shampoo concoction from several different bottles from the wall of pump bottles that had no labels on them into a paper Dixie cup) then delivering me to where there were all these older Hispanic women who sat on stools in between the wash basins waiting for the shampoo concoction to shampoo my hair. The Hispanic women didn’t speak, just washed your hair and it kind of gave you the feeling of them banging clothes against a rock at the river to get them clean with them all lined up that way, not speaking, just cleaning. Finally the second assistant takes you to the stylist’s chair and the first assistant does a towel dry, then in comes the stylist like Liberace (sans candelabra) who cuts your hair for thirty minutes and then the first assistant styles it, the stylist comes back and puts three spritzes of hairspray on it and they all stand back admiring their work never saying anything to you. You go to the counter, give your left testicle and first male born son to pay and leave. Although I digressed, I’m trying to say that there are times when you need friends and when you have bad hair, having a friend tell you is definitely right up there.

I understood that we needed the faux hawk, like we needed the beehive hair do. It was something silly and its time would surely come and go but some boys are hanging onto this harder than the ones that are still back on the Caesar cut. The point is, it’s okay to have a pointy do for awhile but at some point, it’s just dull to look at or be around. So for all of you who are reading this who have one or know someone who has one, please for everyone’s sake, ask them to move on. I don’t care if it’s got bangs or the ever popular messy (it took me eight hours to create) hairstyle but it’s time for the faux hawk to fly away, become an endangered species or just die altogether. Please boys, tell me we are done with the faux hawk – Don’t Get Me Started!

 
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Modern Day Banking…Don’t Count On It – Don’t Get Me Started!

As someone in my family used to say, “If they can send a man to the moon…why can’t they (fill in whatever applies)?!” I don’t understand in this day and age why oh why if you put a check in the bank they can put an eleven business day hold on it and yet if I write a check to someone it can clear in almost minutes. Where’s all the speed and convenience of Internet banking? Where’s the customer service? Why did I get the pregnant bitch at the bank instead of the gay kid? Your bank may be great and I thought mine was until this recent episode. Modern day banking…don’t count on it – Don’t Get Me Started!

As with many of my fellow Americans I’m all of about six minutes away from being homeless at any given moment from a financial perspective. So in a plan to de-stress my existence a bit, I took out a 401k loan. After all, there’s all that money sitting in there that is my money so why not make my life a little easier, right? Wrong. The whole experience has been a nightmare and it concluded with an experience at the bank that had me seriously thinking about punching a pregnant woman.

As with any so-thought “bright idea” in my family, I managed to decide to start screwing with my 401k last week during a holiday week. Now you know what this means, this means that everything takes about six times longer because they’re working half and quarter days and whatever the hell else they tell you. No one wants to really expedite things or help you because they’ve got potato salad to eat on a flimsy paper plate that is only going to end up on their lap anyway and then those shorts from 1984 that they shouldn’t even be wearing anymore will have a big ugly stain on them (but they’ll still continue to wear them for another seven years or so). That’s right, last week the world was obsessed with fireworks, independence and wieners! (Wait…is it gay Pride again so soon?)

After much ado, the check finally arrived yesterday and after a harrowing experience where I almost had to wrestle a UPS guy to get the check (an ugly brown kind of story, not a gay fantasy thing at all, that I won’t even go into here) I had the check in my hand and off to the bank I went. As I walked into the bank I noticed that it was basically empty and there were two bankettes sitting at desks, each on their phone. One of the bankettes was the gay boy with the misguided faux hawk and the other was the pregnant almost blond with a face that was continually scrunched up.

Of course, the gay boy remained on his phone while Kari motioned me to come over to her desk. As I sat down she sighed and looked me over as if to say, “Oh great, a gay. Note to self, must remember to disinfect everything when he leaves my desk.” I knew the check was sizable and that there would most likely be a hold on some of the money but once she started clacking away at the keys and making the faces like, “Hmmm, a withdraw at Starbucks? Is that where this guy wastes his money? There’s probably all sorts of payments to porn sites, you know how those gays can’t stay away from the porn.” But all she said was, “Oh…uh huh….mmmm.” And then she delivered the blow. Due to the size of the check, they would release a portion of it in five business days and the rest in eleven business days.

And so it began:

Me: What!?! <I tried to sound calm.> I don’t get it? Can’t you call to verify the money is in the account the check is written on or something? It’s a 401k, the money is there.

Kari: We don’t do that.

Me: Well, I don’t understand. I mean how come when I write a check it goes through immediately but you mean to tell me that when I deposit a check it takes eleven days to clear?

Kari: Yes. That’s how we do it. It is possible that the holds will come off before the five and eleven business days but I don’t encourage you to think that this is what will end up happening. I would just plan on waiting for the money to be released and don’t write any checks on these funds. <she sneered>

Me: <again trying to sound calm> Well, I guess that’s all that I can do now, right? <I look over to the gay boy who goes back to talking on his phone and playing with the ring on his index finger as I think, “Didn’t that whole thing of the ring on the index finger go away two years ago?”><trying to pull myself together and back to the situation at hand> Well, I would appreciate anything you could do to see that this money isn’t held up any longer than necessary. <insert insincere smile>

Kari: Well, give me you number and I’ll make a note to myself and if the holds come off early, I’ll call you. But remember, don’t count on it and remember that it’s business days.

She made me sign a million papers and I was so out of it at this point that all I wanted to do was get to the door. I couldn’t breathe. I was sitting there in an air conditioned facility and yet I was sweating from holding back the rage that made me want to punch Kari into next week or at the very least tell her she was going to have an ugly baby because she was so ugly in personality or lack there of. If I could just make it to the door was all I was thinking and then the million other thoughts that are always in my head starting taking over. Maybe if I took a cleansing breath? Maybe if I stopped her and said, “I’m going over to gay Gary over there instead to handle this transaction.” And then the thoughts started coming faster and faster in my head…Fuck cleansing breaths, fuck the gay boy and for fuck sake who would have wanted to fuck Kari in the first place that even got her pregnant? I stumbled out of the bank to the 109 degree weather that somehow seemed cooler and by the grace of God, found my car.

I was proud of myself for keeping my composure and I was pleased that I thought I’d done a good enough acting job that Kari wouldn’t bury my check and make it take an additional sixteen business days for it to clear. But I don’t know if I succeeded in either endeavor and won’t know until I see that all the money actually makes it into my account.

I hate banks. I hate everything about them and their “we see what you’ve been doing and we’re judging you” attitude. Do I think that the bank puts holds on fund to somehow make money off of me? Yes. So that they can collect some interest or do whatever they do with the money like the goblins at Gringotts (the bank in the Harry Potter series). Yes. But alas, once again, they hold all the power and as a mere mortal, I can do nothing but put my head down, sign where they tell me and move on. Modern day banking…don’t count on it – Don’t Get Me Started!

Post Script…

The more I thought about this last night, the angrier I got and if that money doesn’t get released, I think I’m going to have to go over to that bank and pull a Moses. You know, carry a big stick and say, “Let my money go.” And if they don’t, while God may not help me by sending plagues or boils maybe the least he can do is give Kari a burning bush!

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PlanetOut Is In Financial Remission And Buying Everything In Sight Including A Planet…er…um…Well, At Least An Island! – Don’t Get Me Started!

Gay Monopoly giant PlanetOut (that owns everything from The Advocate magazine to websites such as gay.com) was in financial trouble. In a previous blog I theorized it was because having bought up every fag rag imaginable they managed to be the major publisher player of gay periodicals but then promptly made them all the same magazine except for the cover. (Read that blog here…PlanetOut Really Down And Out? ) What was that word we used to fling about so often when discussing the gay community…oh right, diversity, that’s it, remember? I almost forgot. Well I’m happy to say that no one is going to lose their jobs because PlanetOut managed to pull out (like a straight boy on prom night) and not only have they supposedly overcome their financial hardships but they’ve bought a gay travel agency, gay cruise line and in the works is a gay island too. PlanetOut is in financial remission and buying everything in sight including a planet…er…um…well, at least an island! – Don’t Get Me Started!

First let me reiterate that I’m happy that a huge gay conglomerate exists and that they are getting themselves back up on their well manicured feet again. It’s rumored that one of the organizations that helped them out of their financial hard times was a Bill Gates organization. (Oh Bill, I’m gay too, can I have some money too before those checks come into my account at the end of the week and bounce?) So make no mistake about it, I think that a company like PlanetOut is a good thing and I’m glad that they are getting fiscally sound again.

However, one would have to be blind not to see that they brought this upon themselves. Truly, all of their publications look exactly alike at this point. While some would disagree as their masturbation magazines run the gamut from hairless to hairy, it does get me when the other magazines like The Advocate, a long time beacon of justice and social relevance for the gay community has become nothing more than a bunch of glossy pages with articles featuring straight celebrities where the interviewer droolingly asks such probing questions as, “If you had a boy crush on someone, who would it be?” One of the latest developments is that the editor of The Advocate has decided to stop shipping it in its white plastic condom sleeve and allow the magazine to ship sans wrapping. This is really fine considering the covers aren’t the least bit controversial anymore and while they say they’re doing it to “take a stand” and “be more green” we all know that someone figured out how much money they could save by shipping it without the modern day plain brown wrapper. Frankly I’m more embarrassed that my mailperson is going to see that I subscribe to a magazine with so little substance and not the fact that it features gay articles. The odd thing about The Advocate is that on one of the very last pages of each issue they show an old cover from years gone by. How they can not themselves be looking at these old issues and using it as a barometer for themselves is beyond me. I say, “Advocate start becoming an advocate for our community again, please.” While I hope that the financial rebirth will have them doing some self-examination, I doubt that the glossy trend will change for The Advocate and so my subscription has not been renewed.

Meanwhile, PlanetOut also bought a gay cruise line and travel agency. I’m all good with that too and hope that it is enormously successful. Where I was taken aback was the news that they want to also buy an island and turn it gay (or as we would say, redecorate it with gays). This sounds like a not so great idea to me. First of all, dare I say it? <whisper> I see and like straight people! I know, I know, I’m just talking crazy now but my parents are straight and so are many of my friends and relatives and even if it’s self imposed isolation, putting all gays on an island just makes me feel like we’re back in World War II at the camps or creating a modern day leper colony. Maybe it’s due to all the stereotypical media images I see representing us but I can’t help but think that an entire island that is run by, for and inhabited by the gays would be more than a little overwhelming to me. I see older men in their linen Capri pants, loose fitting gauze tops and espadrilles walking the beach looking at the hairless young boys in their Speedos. One of the older men waves at the passing boys, “Say boys, don’t forget there’s a Bette Midler movie fesssstival tonight at The Gaiety on Main Street. Bring the hankies cause they’re showing Beaches and Jinxed! Ta!” While this may seem like paradise to some, it just sort of creeps me out, you know, too “Night of the Living Gays” or something. While I understand the need for a sense of community, for me personally, I’ve never had the need to move to a “gay ghetto” or restrict myself to only having friends of the gay persuasion.

You see, I’ve never been a man that recoiled and made the fake throwing up gesture when someone talks about a vagina or cringes at the thought of women in general (unless you’re telling them how to do their hair or dress). I may be stereotypical in a lot of ways but this is not one of them. I can’t imagine what I would do without my straight friends (both male and female) and so I don’t think I’d even want to visit The Island of Misfit Gays. So you’ll all have to sail away to that mythical land of great arms, abs and asses without me. Have a drink with an umbrella in it for me and toast to my good health living among the mere mortals.

Yeah, I’m glad that PlanetOut is making some changes and getting themselves together but like a friend that gets off the booze, I do hope somewhere along the line they go into therapy and discover why they only represent one type of gay when there are so many different varieties of us out here, there and everywhere. Because you see, though some don’t believe it, the one thing I do have is hope. PlanetOut is in financial remission and buying everything in sight including a planet…er…um…well, at least an island! – Don’t Get Me Started!

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The Gays Are Spraying Their Territory Again…This Time It’s Hairspray The Movie Musical – Don’t Get Me Started!

“Without Gypsies, Jews and Faggots there would be no theatre” is a classic Mel Brooks’ line from his movie, To Be Or Not To Be about the Nazis rounding people up in World War II. This statement is true even today. We all know that us gays are responsible for some pretty great theater, art, dance and movies (among other things) so it should come as no surprise to anyone that the gang bang behind the movie musical, Hairspray (being released later this month) is gayer than gay. The thing is that once again us gays seem to be looking for controversy even when there isn’t one to be had. Such is definitely the case with all the hoopla around this lighthearted movie about to be released. I can’t help but think about the Shakespeare quote, “Much ado about nothing.” The gays are spraying their territory again…this time it’s Hairspray the movie musical – Don’t Get Me Started!

We all get that Hairspray was the original brain child of the once underground and now mainstream (kinda) filmmaker, John Waters. John Waters just happens to be gay. Of course a story about a fat girl who doesn’t fit in making it on a local dance show similar to American Bandstand would strike a chord in all the gays who have ever felt left out or not included in what the “nicest kids in town” were doing. Add to that the controversial storyline of racial integration in the 60’s in Baltimore where the story is set and you have a grand slam for the gays who have felt like they were riding the back of the bus for a long time too. This is one movie that was ripe to become a Broadway musical. And so it came to pass that a bunch of gays did just that – hell, the production was so overrun by gays you almost needed to call the Pied Piper to lead the gays from the stage that year at the Tonys. To be honest, it made the award show too gay even for me. All the fawning by the two lovers Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman (who wrote the music and lyrics) as they accepted award after award, doing their speeches like the meeting of the mutual admiration society was so much that it made me want to heave. At any rate, with Chicago, Dreamgirls and other musicals turned to movies being in vogue again, no surprise that the Broadway musical would become a movie.

From the start of the casting controversy (I guess) over John Travolta as the mother of Tracy (the fat girl played by Ricki Lake in the original movie) I knew that we were in trouble. Gays were mad that the man that they had always said was gay (but never had any proof of it, dammit) seemed angry that a “straightee” would be going in drag for the role in the film. Who cares was my response to this one as an actor is an actor and just because Divine starred in the original film and Harvey Fierestein starred in the Broadway show doesn’t mean it’s a “gay only” role although it did in some sort of strange gay prejudice way that only those gays will understand. Now the controversy is that the Church of Scientology to which John Travolta belongs is against gays and therefore there should be a gay boycott of the movie. Let me just say, I don’t care how many Hollywood heavyweights are Scientologists there’s something really freaky about this so-called religion and the people who subscribe to it. (Call me Jewish, but I’d much rather attend a Kabbalah class with Madonna than go to a Scientology meeting with Travolta.) Still no reason (in my mind) to boycott the movie.

My point is that this time gays, I think you’ve gone too far. Not everyone in the world is out to get us and certainly not the people who make Broadway and movie musicals. Please save your passionate indignation for something important, say like not being able to serve in the military openly, be in the hospital with our loved ones, etc. It would seem to this gay that going after the musical people is like attacking ourselves and to what end? Come on, do you really think the almost exclusively gay production team behind the movie is really trying to hurt the gay community with their casting choices? No, they, like every gay that sells a rainbow bumper sticker are just trying to make a buck and they realized that Travolta is good box office, period.

Of course there was some sunshine at the end of the rainbow for the pissy gays about the movie Hairspray, it was announced that Lance Bass will go into the Broadway production in a secondary role. If you ask me, we gays should be more upset about this casting choice, that they’re putting a no talent like Lance Bass in a Broadway show just because he’s gay. Who cares that he’s gay if he has no talent? There has been a rash of past boy band mates stinking up the Broadway stage for years now (do they make a cream for that?) as a way to try to get the box office numbers to soar. I don’t know about you but I’m not interested. I’d rather see a great performer than a performance by someone not so great whose big claim to fame is that they shared a dressing room with Justin Timberlake. Once again, straight or gay, the producers are just thinking about the bottom line – not whose bottom their star is interested in.

So I’m asking all us gays out there to “Play nice.” The movie Hairspray won’t hurt you or our community as much as you going on a bitch fest looking like a bunch of screaming queens without a throne to stand on. If you don’t want to see the movie, like anything else, just don’t go to the theatre to see it but please shut up so the rest of us can focus on really important things like Paris finding Jesus when she was in jail. (Apparently he was right behind the toilet all the time – who knew?) The gays are spraying their territory again…this time it’s Hairspray the movie musical – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Renaissance Faire People Scare Me – Don’t Get Me Started!

I don’t get it, I simply don’t get it and I never will. To be fair (get it?) I’ve never understood any of the “reenactment people.” From Thanksgiving plays to Civil War to even the cheesy reenactments that they do on some of the like 48 hours investigative shows. If it’s not the real deal, I don’t care about it and the top of that list are the people who go and participate in those Renaissance faires (or as Michael and I call them, “Rennies” – short for Renaissance and how cute they think they are in their costumes.) Renaissance faire people scare me – Don’t Get Me Started!

My seven year old niece is visiting this week and so it came to pass that my mother bought us all tickets to go see The Tournament Of Kings, a renaissance inspired dinner theatre production at the Excalibur (how perfect) hotel and casino. This show lets you eat with your hands, see horses gallop and it could “thee” and “thou” you to death by the way that everyone is talking. It may shock some of you to know that this was my first visit to this type of environment (and if you’re shocked you obviously have not been reading any of my blogs so welcome thee, I guess).

From the minute you line up to walk in all you have to do is look at the “Lords” and “Ladies” in the line to discover exactly who this show is catering to as an audience. Basically, it’s people who like to eat with their hands and have an excuse to be loud. They’re all ready starting in the line with their ripped Nascar t-shirt on that is filled with stains from the $1.99 shrimp cocktail eating contest they just lost downtown Vegas when they only managed to stuff 37 in their mouth while Bubba from Tennessee got 43 down his gullet. Of course there was much controversy about the decision as Bubba had no teeth and therefore some of the other contestants thought he should have been given at least a 5 shrimp cocktail handicap but such was not the case. At any rate, now they’re getting ready for the show and they can’t wait. You hear them “oooh” and “aahhh” as they walk into the arena that is lined with cement tables with theatre seats behind them. You wonder if they could ever get this place clean enough to make you feel comfortable eating there but then you just get over it and go with it (otherwise you’d be miserable alone). As you look around you know that this is not the Cirque de Soleil crowd whatsoever but to these folk it may as well be and God love them, they love the pounding on the cement table, clinking their plastic mugs against one another and pulling apart their Cornish hen with their bare hands and devouring it like Henry VIII. This is high entertainment for them.

I could go on about the show (which was just okay) but more important to me are the people who really take this renaissance thing so seriously. I don’t understand these five hundred pound women in their forties in these empire waist chiffon gowns (trying to cover their multitude of sins but you can still see their stomach sticking out, making them look like Barbra Streisand in the pregnant bride number from the movie Funny Girl) while they wear their pointy hats and gloves that don’t cover their fingers. The men who grow their mullets long and proud who wear tunics and tights that bunch around their knees and ankles. Am I missing something? Is this enjoyable? Who are these “rennies” and don’t they scare you as much as they scare me?

I love to generalize so I will once again for you. It’s mostly people who are overweight and don’t want to shave (men and women) who seem to be the most attracted to this whole thing. Is it because of the loose clothing or the chance to say, “Look at me, I’m just like they were then, a mutton sleeve on my tunic and a mutton leg in my hand! Pour me the grog!” It can’t be that any of this crap tastes good but I guess to them it does and we shouldn’t judge them but between us, they’re three minutes away from becoming mimes to me.

Having been in theatre I have known some “rennies” in my time and they are all as weird as shit. That’s not to say that actors, singers (especially opera singers) and dancers aren’t weird but I’m telling you that the “rennies” take weirdness to another level. They’re the medieval version of Star Trek and Star Wars fans. The thing is that they’re so proud of it. “Oh, we went to the faire and I had on my new crushed velvet doublet and everyone was dying to know where I got it. Some thought that I had cheated by using a McCalls pattern but I told them that I found a woman on the Internet that has patterns that her grandmother had saved so you must know that it’s much more authentic than what most are wearing around the faire. Hoozah!”

And just why is it that so many of them seem to have such an odd smell? I think they get off on the whole no showering thing “back in the day.” It gives them an excuse to be pigs. Oh they can try to cover it up with the authentic patchouli that they used to wear as a Knight getter in the olden times but I say go for it and at least spray a little Right Guard when you’re the King’s guard to save us all when you hold up your spear.

Bottom line, I have never been and never will be a “rennie” and I’m really more than fine with that one. I don’t say that everyone has to like what I like or be like me, certainly not but these people who love the reenactments are just a little freaky. Or as I like to say now, they are “Fa-Reaks!” Can’t help it, that’s what you are so wear it like a badge of honor on your diaphanous gown or on your fake chainmail knight suit and have a time of it but please just stay away from me. Renaissance faire people scare me – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Joe Must Be A Good Gay Son! – Don’t Get Me Started!

Writing a blog can often be a very lonely experience. I tend to think of it like that old Barry Manilow song, Ships where one of the lyrics is, “We only read you when you write.” Since this is going out to the world over the Internet and you don’t really know who is reading it, if they’re liking it or going to eventually end up stalking you and wearing your skin as a housecoat, I’m always interested when comments come in. Having worked in theatre for a major portion of my life, I’m used to criticism and for the most part I’ve tried to learn from any of  the negative comments that have come in from time to time. (The positive comments bring a smile to my face and make me feel good but the negative ones seem to be the ones that stick with me). Well, recently I wrote a blog about people over forty not wearing sleeveless shirts (Read the blog here… http://hubpages.com/hub/Do_Not_Go_Sleeveless_After_Forty_Just_Trust_Me_On_This_One)and someone out there named Joe wrote in all fired up and all I can say (even though I don’t know Joe from Adam) is Joe must be a good gay son! – Don’t Get Me Started!

Here’s what Joe had to say to me regarding my distaste at men and women going sleeveless over forty…

joe says:
10 hours ago

i could not disagree more. my mother is in her early 50's & she looks amazing. tan & beautiful & doesn't look a day over 39.

 perhaps it was a bad mirror or perhaps she just has the insecurities of every other gal in the world. you cannot see yourself accurately in a mirror, especially if it's not in your house.

 ew. to forbid anyone on anything other than a shop for teens is just...ew. women's bodies are different & all people have their little problem areas that they're self-consious of. for you set an age limit on sleveless shirts is ridiculous. go on a case by case basis.

i would hate to be your friend. no one should trust you.

First may I say that I always have to wonder when the comments that come in aren’t spelled correctly or in Joe’s case why he does not possess the ability to use the shift key to make capital letters? (What is he e.e.cummings for Chrissakes?) There’s a reason for punctuation and grammar, it helps us to know what in the hell it is you’re trying to say. But please understand this is not about picking on Joe here. I want to help him understand what I was talking about and if I wasn’t being very clear as a writer than allow me to correct this error.

I’m delighted that Joe’s mother looks so swell sleeveless. My grandmother wore sleeveless tops into her eighties and I get that it can be a generational thing or that some people can indeed “pull it off” regardless of their age. What Joe didn’t get was that I was talking about the forty year olds who are going sleeveless to look cool or trying to look twenty – not his mother or my grandmother.  

When it comes to mirrors not reflecting correctly unless you’re in your own home, I don’t understand that one. I get that you may not be looking at yourself fully in a mirror but it not working correctly? I have to doubt that one. As far as my friend goes, it wasn’t a case of a bad mirror or her being self-conscious, I know her and she shouldn’t have ought to be wearing a sleeveless anything at the moment. We have a thing called a relationship where we can be honest and I’m thankful for it.

So as far as Joe’s claim that he would hate to be my friend and that no one should trust me, he’s wrong…oh so dead wrong. I happen to be a wonderful friend. (Hell, I have people in line like a good nightclub waiting to get on that list.) I don’t miss birthdays, I call and stay in touch often and I don’t know anyone who can read the story, “My Best Friend’s Weddings” (Go here and scroll down the page… http://www.somelikeitscott.com/somelikegay.html ) and not come away with the impression that I’m a pretty damn good friend. I will admit I may not be a lot of things but not a good friend is certainly not one of them. And as far as trusting me, well Joe, I think that’s something for you and your therapist to work out…your trust issues.

But here’s the deal. I totally appreciate Joe’s comments and the only reason for a whole blog about it is because as it says on my home page, “Although I’ve tried most of my life to appeal to the masses, I understand that I’m an acquired taste, you know, like say, Tab cola?” and because I have been blessed with Jewish guilt about everything (including someone I don’t know’s comments about me…hmmm….something for me and my therapist to deal with!) So I’ll continue to write and Joe doesn’t have to read but re-read Joe’s comments again and I think you’ll see what I saw in Joe’s comments as he’s fiercely defending his mother’s rights to wear a sleeveless shirt and how good she looks in it with her tan. Joe must be a good gay son! – Don’t Get Me Started!

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The Ex-Gays Get Another One And They Can Have Him, We Don’t Want Him – Don’t Get Me Started!

So it seems that Michael Glatze who was once the editor for the Young Gay America publication has come out as an ex-gay who has seen the light of Jesus and is hanging up his triangle. He was a role model who had won “endless praise and a number of awards, including Equality Forum’s National Role Model Award” according to www.queerty.com . But today, he’s a straight man. What a difference a day makes, I suppose. The ex-gays get another one and they can have him, we don’t want him – Don’t Get Me Started!

Apparently it all began for Mr. Glatze when he “developed a growing relationship with God, thanks to a debilitating bout with intestinal cramps caused by the upset stomach-inducing behaviors I’d been engaged in.” Dare I question exactly what type of intestinal cramp behavior he was engaged in? I’d like to say that maybe it was too many sit-ups or diuretics or perhaps it was that old baby hamster story that everyone tells about Richard Gere and/or reporter Jerry Penacoli but let me say that Jesus has yet to give me intestinal cramps, it was always something I ate…not someone.

I guess it’s just another case of us Jews going to hell anyway so we don’t need to worry about this whole thing. I plan on getting to hell first; decorating in my style and in my color palette so that when all my friends get there they’ll be stuck with my design taste for all of eternity (truly hell for some). And I have to say that I’m glad that Mr. Glatze won’t be there. As far as I’m concerned, Jesus is going to have his hands full in this heaven place with all these holier than thou people. They’re going to be overflowing and I’m sure that Jesus has all ready started a set of condos just outside heaven for all these types so that it can be like annoying relatives who live far enough away that you only have to see them on holidays. I can here the call between say Jesus and Jerry Falwell now…

Jesus: Hey Jerry, how are you?
Jerry: Great, heaven is swell and as luck would have it, I’m going to be in your neighborhood today, can I stop by?

Jesus: Oh…um…sorry, no can do…you really caught me on a bad day. I’ve got a million errands, you know that Oprah is practically a prayer machine, I have to get over and see Angelina’s new baby and it’s my father’s birthday this week. I mean, what do you get God? He likes the gadgets so I’m leaning toward the Roomba in the Sharper Image catalog. You know it’s that round vacuum that “roombas” around the room cleaning? Well, it’s either that or a nose hair trimmer. You can’t even imagine what’s going on there.

Jerry: Yeah but Jesus, last week you said I could stop by…

Jesus: I know, and I promise we’ll do it soon but we just had the floors redone too so…oh, sorry Jerry, that’s Oprah on the other line and you know we’re working on her favorite things show. God bless, see you at Christmas and let’s talk soon, okay? <click>

Jerry: Jesus? Jesus? Jesus, he just hung up on me! Jesus!

Hey, I don’t care if you don’t want to be gay anymore (although I have serious doubts that this is actually a choice you can make). I firmly believe that you can squelch your instincts down for awhile but eventually, they’re going to come to a head like that whitehead pimple you got the day of your last really important date with Mr. Could Be Right. Most likely this guy will live the rest of his life trying to convince himself he’s not gay, looking at gay porn on the Internet and occasionally he’ll find himself on his knees in an alley blowing some guy he doesn’t know or want to know. From there he’ll scoot to the nearest church and get on his knees for another type of blowing…smoke up the ass of Jesus. (Well, some people seem to like that too) And as drafty as it must be in heaven with all those clouds, Jesus will hardly notice, not to mention he’s probably really used to it by now.

I think when these ex-gays come out for their fifteen minutes of ex-gaydom publicity, it’s really okay. It really doesn’t affect me in the slightest because to me being gay is natural. It’s just me and who I’ve always been and who I will always be, simple. (Unfortunately, Mr. Glatze can’t say the same of his overly highlighted hair) I think what these guys will end up doing is being ex-gay until they’re at an ex-gay retreat and discover among the pinecones another Jesus loving trying to be straight guy that they really connect with and like…I mean, really like. They’ll sit there in the poison ivy and discover that it wasn’t gayness making them sick all along it was the poison ivy. They’ll embrace and eventually end up with a book and an interview on Larry King.

Sorry Mr. Glatze doesn’t like himself but hey, that’s what Jesus invented therapy for Michael. These people are like children, sometimes you just have to sit back, let them make an ass out of themselves and chuckle to yourself. (I know I’m laughing) The ex-gays get another one and they can have him, we don’t want him – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Who Are All These Handicapped (Handicapable?) People And Why Do They Get Rock Star Parking? – Don’t Get Me Started!

I don’t know if it’s the world in general or just Las Vegas (where I live) but it would seem to me that there are so many more handicapped parking spaces than I have ever seen before and they are in every parking lot. If you have good use of your legs (or just weren’t able to score a wheelchair icon dangler for your rear view mirror) plan to walk at least seventeen miles to get into any store or establishment. There are complete rows of handicapped spaces now and I frankly don’t get it. Are there really this many more disabled (or whatever the politically correct term is this week) or are there just more people with printers at home that can make the damn dangler? Who are all these handicapped (handicapable?) people and why do they get rock star parking? – Don’t Get Me Started!

Before all of you get yourselves in an uproar about me being mean to the disabled, I respectfully say, “shut it.” If you are truly disabled, I get it and I get that you should be able to park closer to the front. What I don’t get are all the people who are seemingly fine and have the sticker, license plate and rear view mirror dangler handicapped collection from the Franklin Mint who park right up front. What did they do, buy the set on easy pay on QVC? Where are they getting them and more importantly why are they getting them. If they’re giving them out for mental illness than sign me up. If they’re giving them out because half of the free world still thinks that being a homosexual is a deviant psychological disorder, then give me a dangler for my mirror, dammit. However, if you’re 7,000 pounds from laying in your bed eating nachos for the past seventeen years and are close to having Dr. Phil come and cut you out of your house for an episode, you do not qualify, in fact for your health, you deserve to walk a few feet to the store to buy your Slim Jims because it’s the only exercise you’ll probably get. You also don’t qualify if you have a scooter. If you have a scooter, there’s no need for you to park close because it’s not as if you’re going to be walking into the store on your own anyway. You have a scooter for Chrissakes so park in a regular spot and then by all means, scoot your way into the store and become as annoying as humanly possible to the rest of us. (Read that blog here… http://www.somelikeitscott.com/2006.10.01_arch.html (Scroll down to see October 10, 2006 – The Scooter People Are Taking Over The World)

For years I have been the one chastising my friends and family about never ever even thinking let alone parking in a handicapped space due to my concern for those less fortunate who needed to be closer and have it more convenient for them to access stores. But the more I see these normal seeming people park in these spaces the more I have to wonder what all that fighting I did for years was about. The only way to solve this is that I want to start seeing doctor’s notes. Say what you will about it being an invasion of privacy or what have you. As the parking public, I think that we have a right when we see some normal walking big burly tattooed guy with his family of seven parking in a handicapped space to ask to see what the doctor has to say that got them their handicapped parking golden ticket.

Recently my mother had a heart procedure done and therefore she was awarded the rear view mirror dangler. Now being a self-respecting (or loathing, how ever you want to put it) Jewish mother she parked in the handicapped spaces but with great guilt. Well, last night we were talking about all the handicapped spaces and the people who managed to park in them who don’t seem to need them at all and she said, “I don’t even limp anymore!” I ask you, if even my mother has lost the will to at least fake a limp so that people will see a physical impairment to give validity for her to be able to be parking in these spaces, all is truly lost! I don’t care that your impairment is internal I want to see some good old fashioned limping. And not just your run of the mill limping, I’m talking Tiny Tim without the crutches limping – throwing one leg as if it was a shot put!

For those of you mock offended right now, stop it immediately. I’m doing this for the people who truly need these spaces. And for those that don’t, they should at least be able to give us a good show. The point is that like everything else there seems to be a great abuse of what was once (and I’m not denying for some today) a needed and useful system.

And please don’t even get me started on the pregnant woman or “mommy” spaces that some people are putting in parking lots. The last place I want you opening the double doors on your blue mini van is in the front of the store blocking pedestrians and car traffic alike as you try to get your seventeen kids out of the car who don’t want to because they’re watching “Happy Feet” on the installed DVD player and spilling Cheerios all over God’s creation. In my opinion, you need to park the furthest away from the store because the whole getting the kids out of the car is normally a complete embarrassment (not that people get embarrassed about anything anymore – another blog for another day) that the kids are ruling their parents and you need some time to get your brood in order before you enter the store. And no, I’m not anti-family, I’m just anti people who have no concern for teaching their children how to behave in public or care about anyone but themselves. You know the kind that has the sixteen stick figures on their back window to represent their family, cats and dogs.

Am I frustrated? You bet. But the larger question is why aren’t all of you too? If the reason we have more of these spaces is because we’ve eaten ourselves into oblivion and can no longer breathe and walk at the same time then I think we need to actually make these spaces further away so that these people can get some exercise. I’m not saying these spaces should go away, I’m just saying that we need to make sure that the people using them are the people that really need them. What was once an exclusive club for those that really needed in the club seems to have been opened up to all the “wrong” people and if they aren’t going to at least limp for us, then I say we see doctor’s notes and check the danglers like we do to make sure that the $20 bill we’re accepting for a latte isn’t fake. Because I think a lot of the people parking in these spaces are a lot more “handicapable” than we’re led to believe. Who are all these handicapped (handicapable?) people and why do they get rock star parking? – Don’t Get Me Started!

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