Iowa Allows Gay Marriage (For At Least Ten Minutes) – Don’t Get Me Started!

“Well, did you evah?” (and that’s not a typo – years ago I was choreographing an Ethel Merman review and one of the songs was “Well Did You Evah?” by Cole Porter and the first day of rehearsal, the director was going through all the songs and that’s what he said after he said the title of this song, “and that’s not a typo!” I don’t know if he really thought he was educating the cast or just liked saying it.) In any case, did you evah think we’d be looking at Iowa as one of our more progressive states? Iowa allows gay marriage (for at least ten minutes) – Don’t Get Me Started!

All ready there’s been stuff filed and probably next week we’ll see the opposition play hardball asking the courts to decide what the judge said, what it means and how they can get us stuffed back into our gay closets (like one of those fake snakes from the old can of peanuts gag your friends used to give you, I think it’s going to be harder than they realize). But regardless of what eventually happens, let’s all take a moment to just be happy for those couples that got married today. All ready much like the first baby born each year, the media has focused in on two undergrad students from Iowa State University who were married this morning in front of their home. The two met on facebook about a year ago and now voila, they’re married. I read some of the comments online from the local paper and there was everything from Iowan’s patting themselves on the back for being one of the ten states that have given these rights to the person who wrote a long drawn out comment mocking it all by saying that they met their dog a year ago on facebook and want to know why they can’t marry their dog.

As those of you who read the blog on a regular basis know, I don’t know how I feel about the whole marriage thing. I know that we should be able to have the same rights as other couples and I guess there’s no way to get around it but to put the word “marriage” to it but for those of us who feel like Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell, that marriage is a piece of paper not needed by us, I have to say that I want the rights but not necessarily the rice. I mean come on, I celebrated nineteen years with the same man yesterday and just because no one ever gave me a gravy boat does that make it less of a union? I know, I know, in the eyes of the law…but let’s face it, making it a law isn’t going to give it validity or make it acceptable in the eyes of many. You can’t legislate feelings, try as we might and I’m glad for that one. Now don’t get me wrong, as I said, we deserve equal rights and all the benefits that go with it, on that I want to be really clear but I decided long ago to work on my own acceptance of myself and that’s more important to me at this point in my life than whether or not Bravo will be doing more episodes of “Gay Weddings.”

I can feel all ready that some will think that I am a traitor or that my gay card needs to be revoked for not all ready having my appointment to get fitted for matching tuxes or moving to one of the ten states that allow gay marriages but remember that marriage is a personal choice that some straight people make and some don’t and now some gays will hopefully be able to have that same choice in Iowa and beyond. Wanting and having the choice is a good thing but please, for everyone’s sake, let’s understand that this is right for some and not for others. A little respect goes a long way.

One of the great things about “the gays” is that we always wanted to be recognized for who we are and to fall or rise on our own merit. Well now we are but let’s try not to screw this up kids by giving the right-wing and media any fodder by showing up in wedding dresses for men and the typical, no-nonsense matching suits for lesbians. Let’s just thank our lucky stars that we’ve seen so much progress in our lifetime and today, let’s just be really happy for Tim and Sean who got married this morning. Iowa allows gay marriage (for at least ten minutes) – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Update: As I was finishing this blog looking for the names of the two students who got married in Iowa this morning I came across “breaking news” that Judge Robert Hanson issued a stay on the ruling he made yesterday ruling the ban on gay marriage was unconstitutional. No more licenses will be given to gays until there’s more investigation and another ruling. Did I say ten minutes?

Designer Chewing Gum, No Really – Don’t Get Me Started!

On the whole I don’t know that I could really classify myself as a gum chewer (as I don’t chew daily) but I do always have a pack in my car (makes a great air freshener if the pack is new and really pepperminty) and in my briefcase just in case I need some mouth freshness in a hurry. So as the gum pieces got smaller and sugar-free I went along with them never really thinking about the price. That is until I bought my most expensive gum ever the other day, 5 the new gum from Wrigley. Designer chewing gum, no really – Don’t Get Me Started!

I have very fond memories of getting in my Dad’s 1966 Cadillac and him always having a stick of gum to offer me and my brother. Most of the time Dad gave us a classic gum, Wrigley’s DoubleMint but sometimes, just sometimes, it was the sugary rush of Juicy Fruit. I can still see that yellow package and remember that when you used to put the stick of gum in your mouth the sugar would sort of crystallize on your tongue as you began chewing it. The flavor didn’t last all that long but who really cared? You were so sugared up you were happy.
 

Over the years I have to admit that whatever was the coolest packaging was what I went for while waiting to checkout at the supermarket. I am a packaging whore. I am a marketing guy’s wet dream because if something looks good to me then I’m buying it and it doesn’t really even matter what the product is, if it does its job or if eventually it will give me cancer. This goes for hair products all the way down to gum. And it also explains my various “product graveyards” in my home for everything from hair products to gum. In the case of hair products, I always think that I spent too much money on them so I shouldn’t throw them away and that someday I just may want to try using one of the products again (something incidentally, that never happens). Throwing a pack of gum away is an easier task for me. And please don’t think that I’m some hoarder of all things as I am a big “heave hoer” from way back when it comes to things being too cluttered but we all have our gray areas, don’t we?

Without realizing it, I guess I just got used to the whole short, stubby pieces of gum that look like Chicklets on steroids that you push out of the plastic molded Snow White clear plastic coffins they live in or in a pack that folds over (you know like Orbit or Stride gum, which has a package that folds over twice and though the gum is good, once again, it’s all about the package for me). As long as it was sugar-free, tasted okay and looked sensational when I went to offer a pal some gum, it was good for me. So when I saw the packaging for 5 gum, it had me at the matte black sleek envelope case with some sort of “insert tab A into slot B closure” before I even cared if they had a flavor I was interested in. Incidentally, I don’t get who names gum anymore but I want to sign up for that job. The best example is this new 5 Gum which comes in Rain, Cobalt and Flare. Anyone want to try and guess what the hell Cobalt tastes like or Flare or even Rain? Or do you want to guess why it didn’t even matter to me? (Ah, once again, the marketing people know what they’re doing) The point here is that when I opened the package to reveal these shiny alien blue wrappers, I was dazzled. What’s even more is that when I took out the first piece I was sort of dumbfounded as it was a “stick” and not a piece. That’s right; these are sticks like you remember sticks of gum in shape and size. I guess everything is truly new again. I don’t know if I was more surprised by the shape or the fact that I had to remind myself that this is the way gum used to come all the time. I felt really stupid (which like so many things, immediately goes into my blog) staring at the “odd” shape as I unwrapped it. And I felt equally stupid that I didn’t even look at the price for being dazzled by the packaging. This gum is about $1.50 but come on, in the gum world this is like having to take out a second mortgage, give up your first male born and one of your testicles to buy it. (Of course you see that it didn’t stop me from purchasing it and yes, I still have both testicles.)

I don’t know if it’s that I think the gum is too expensive, that we really don’t need designer gum or if the main thing is that I wish I was six again in my Dad’s car getting my gum from him but it does seem to me that as I grow older I ask myself questions about all the gazillion product choices that are out there that I’m not sure we need. I remember gum as being something like most products that was associated with a character too and so I have to ask, “Do we need this many different brands and flavors of gum? What ever happened to Bazooka? Or more importantly, Bazooka Joe? With the awful cartoons we laughed at anyway? Is the Fruit Stripe zebra dead? He doesn’t call or write anymore. What is the character associated with 5 Gum? A big number 5? Hardly the Fruit Stripe zebra with his wacky stripes or even Bazooka Joe.” Even Tony the Tiger seems to be an extra on the box of Frosted Flakes (or whatever they’re calling them now) instead of the star he once was at my breakfast table. Makes me feel not so G-R-R-R-E-A-T! Designer chewing gum, no really – Don’t Get Me Started!

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The Anti-Gay Children’s Book – Don’t Get Me Started!

Richard A. Cohen (not the Richard Cohen I used to do theatre with and was fabulous as Gregory Gardner in A Chorus Line) is an ex-gay who is now taking his campaign to the kids with a children’s book titled, Alfie’s Home. The anti-gay children’s book – Don’t Get Me Started!

Just in case you don’t get enough hate in your life or misunderstanding, the good news is that now your kids and you can experience it without those big words and it comes with pictures. But I know some of you are dying to know the storyline, right? Well here you go. Alfie is a boy whose mother spends most of her time apparently telling him about her problems with his father. Next his father is a screamer (not in an overtly gay way, boys but a yeller if you will). Then there’s Uncle Pete who comes and spends the night sometimes in the same bed with Alfie and touches him in strange and exotic ways. Somehow this causes Alfie to be called, “faggot” at school as a teen. Alfie finally goes to a counselor (here’s the good news – the counselor is black so at least there’s someone ethnic represented in the book) and he helps Alfie see that he is not gay, gets Alfie’s parents counseling and eventually gets a full confession out of Uncle Pete (who incidentally, is up for most obvious name of a character in a children’s anti-gay book ever written – oooh, I do hope Uncle Pete the Pedophile who touches Alfie’s penis is the winner!). It all gets summed up by saying that what Alfie needed from the start was the “time, touch and talk” of his Dad. (Which sounds a little pedophilic to me all on its own) If that doesn’t bring a tear to your one good eye, I don’t know what will. You can see some of the “lowlights” (and I’m not talking in a salon sort of way) on queerty.com of the actual book, here’s the link. http://www.queerty.com/news/ex-gay-activist-gets-illustrated-20070827/

Here’s the deal, as many wrote into queerty.com, I am one of the people who have a great relationship with my father, always have, we love one another and I can’t hang up the phone with him or leave their house without him telling me he loves me. And while my Dad does yell (it’s just the natural tone of his voice) it never made me want to get into the same bed with my uncle. Furthermore, were the parents in this book fighting so much that they never knew Uncle Pete was in the same bed with their kid? Don’t you have to wonder if there’s more going on here than just a pedophile uncle but also some bad parenting? And how the hell does it translate into some sort or weird validation in high school by the kids calling him a “faggot?” As someone who’s face has an intimate knowledge of every locker in my high school from being slammed into them at least once a day and being called “faggot” every day at least six times, I have to say that it didn’t really make me want to be gay or think that the gay lifestyle was all that glamorous. So I have to say that Mr. Cohen is a bit off base with this part of his ex-fairy tale too.

I get it that a lot of gay men don’t have great relationships with their fathers and/or they were molested as a child but there are a lot that weren’t and it’s a bit irresponsible of this guy to be putting this book out as if it’s some sort of cautionary tale or standard for being gay. For some of us who knew we were gay before we lip synced to our first Barbra Streisand record, I have to say if I had read this book as a child it wouldn’t have made me not gay or given me clarity. In fact it would have confused me. And while most books are open to some interpretation (Let me hear you Bible readers hollah!) this one is not. And forget about those books like Heather Has Two Mommies, if you’re looking for a sure fire gay training tool for children, you don’t have to look much further than Pat The Bunny. This book teaches you how to tell if something is real or faux fur, how great a beard feels against your skin, to look at yourself in a mirror, how swell Mommy’s ring looks on you, smelling flowers and playing peek a boo with a blanket (you know how the gays like to play peek a boo during sex). Come on, when you think about it this way, wouldn’t Pat The Bunny make you gayer than Heather Has Two Mommies or not gay as much as Alfie’s Home?

What gets me the most is that this guy is going to make a fortune on this poorly illustrated book and even more disgusting is that it will actually find its way into children’s hands. The good news is that kids are smarter than their parents and in most cases I’m thinking they’ll recognize it for the crap that it is and move on being gay or not gay. The anti-gay children’s book – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Senator Larry Craig Isn’t A Homosexual, He Just Plays One In Bathrooms – Don’t Get Me Started!

So according to the reports, Senator Larry Craig (Republican, of course) from Idaho was apparently arrested in June for lewd behavior in the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport bathroom, pled guilty and paid his $500. Now in a statement that it was all a mistake that he wasn’t looking for sex from the police officer in the next stall, he claims he should never have pled guilty and that he isn’t gay. Senator Larry Craig isn’t a homosexual, he just plays one in bathrooms – Don’t Get Me Started!

Immediately you could “go there” about him being a Republican, the fact that he’s married with kids or that once again a supposed non-gay somehow knew to tap his foot, rub it up against the police officer’s and then wave under the stall. (Supposedly these are the signals that are used to solicit sex from stall to stall and apparently he knew them all.) Now all of these signals are about as foreign to me as a baseball coach trying to tell me to steal second. I had no idea about the tapping, the rubbing and the waving. All this just sounds like a gay Country bar where the boys two-step and wave to their friends as they come in. So maybe you all know about these “signals” but I had no idea it was all so involved.

He claims at the time of the arrest he was trying to tell the police that they had “misconstrued” his actions. Yeah, I’m sure the cop with his big rubber soled shoes “misconstrued” the (no doubt) Gucci loafer with tassels reaching over and rubbing up against his foot. Maybe that’s why I don’t know about these signals…my legs are way too short, I don’t think they’d reach to do the rubbing. Now I’ve got rhythm so I could tap and the wave is no problem, but I think I’d probably fall and hit my head on the porcelain base of the toilet while trying to reach someone’s foot in the stall next to me.

What gets me is with the Internet why can’t these guys just order out for sex like everyone else I know? Maybe you find it hot to get blown while the smell of some guy’s pastrami sandwich that didn’t sit too well with him is taking a major dump next to you. (I know some people are into that, right?) Or maybe it’s just the whole anonymous thing and what happens in airports stays in airports, I honestly don’t know. But what gets me is that this guy is a Senator, do you mean no one advised him that by pleading guilty it means that you did it? Come on, we all used to watch Baretta, right? “Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time…whoa hoa.”

No surprise that this yahoo is known for his support of gun owners and has what is deemed a “close” relationship with the National Rifle Association. (Since he’s apparently looked down a couple of barrels in his day, if you know what I mean and I know that you do) He also apparently had called allegations by a gay rights organization in 2006 that he engaged in homosexual behavior “completely ridiculous.” I agree, that it’s completely ridiculous that there’s yet another public figure caught for exposing his “figure” in a public bathroom. But I’ll leave it to experts like George Michael to decide. I yield the floor (the bathroom floor that is) to my senior Senator from Idaho.

Well he’s up for re-election next year so if I were him, I’d steal all the little soaps I can from the toilets in Congress while I’m there and leave the tapping, rubbing and waving to the professionals. I’m not one of those people who think that everyone is gay so I don’t know if he’s gay or just wanted someone to blow him. And you know what? I don’t care. But I say the more these supposed “leaders” get exposed, the better (as long as I don’t have to see it). Senator Larry Craig isn’t a homosexual, he just plays one in bathrooms – Don’t Get Me Started!

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How To Go From Writing Your Blog To Video Blogging (Without hurting yourself or those around you) – Don’t Get Me Started!

I started blogging a few years ago off and on but when I became the official blogger for Project Runway (Season 3) last year on bravotv.com it became apparent to me that I was going to have to throw caution to the wind and begin blogging on a regular basis. And as I am who I am, that meant creating a website for the blog. (Something I knew nothing about) But I found a great do-it-yourself web hosting site (www.web.com) and within two weekends of learning and spending fourteen hour days, alas, the Some Like It Scott site was born (http://www.somelikeitscott.com)! I still love it when people ask me who designed my site for me for it is me, myself and I (and lots of trial and error). So over the past year of posting to the blog at least five times a week and keeping the other pages current (while holding down a really demanding full-time job that has me traveling all over God’s creation) along with the rest of my life, I made this much harder than it probably needed to be. Most people do a one page site, mine had 9 pages (got smart and archived a couple and added one so the site currently has 8 pages) and so that meant that you needed to update those pages at least once a week and then you have the Jewish guilt that people come to the site and aren’t seeing anything new so they’re not coming back again so you start just moving things around on pages (out of sheer desperation) so that the page will look new and hopefully no one will find out or worse, hate you for it. At any rate, I finally found my stride and was keeping everything semi-up-to-date when people started writing in asking when I would start video blogging. Now you have to remember that when you’re writing no one sees your process so they don’t know if the ideas just flow or are painful to get out and no one is going to start to stalk you because they have no idea who you are or that you’re sitting writing in a ripped up t-shirt and sweat pants, having not showered in two days with your hair looking like some sort of exotic greasy moss so if they saw you they definitely would have no interest in stalking you. (Yet it does happen, a story for another day) How to go from writing your blog to video blogging (without hurting yourself or those around you) – Don’t Get Me Started!

Once you decide to start video blogging the first thing you need is a camera. I did some research (but probably not as much as I should have) and decided on a Logitech Quick Cam Ultra-Vision (Special Edition). It has the microphone built in so there are less moving parts to deal with and that’s a good thing. It hangs off your monitor or the hook can be manipulated to lay flat (thought I was breaking it the first time I did it). So I install the software that came with it and plug in the camera. Voila the worst picture I’ve ever seen in my life. I looked like a photo negative and then it would get so bright it looked as if I had just landed on Mars (the red planet). I was so frustrated and although the software said it had looked for the latest update and none were available, I went to the Logitech site (after three frustrating days and buying all sorts of cheap lights thinking it was the lighting and that I needed to be lit from behind, in front or from somewhere in Europe thoughts of returning the thing and never buying another camera seemed as if they would make a blissful reality) and found a later version of the software. Once installed the camera did everything the reviews said that it would. Now the real decisions would need to be made.

First you have to decide with yourself whether or not you’re going to take naked pictures of yourself. (Okay, this really wasn’t anything I considered but you do think about it as the camera is right there and it just seems so easy. Easy if you’re not a Jewish boy obsessed with the bagel that your middle section has become which renders it impossible for you to even look at yourself naked when you come out of a shower so you may be completely gangrene from the neck down and never know and you’re certainly not going to be filming it). Let’s just say this was never an option for me.

For me, I wanted my video blog to be different from the Don’t Get Me Started blog I write and yet have a point of view and be very “me” for lack of a better term. So I started watching other people’s video blogs. To be honest, I didn’t get through very many of them. Why? Because with the convenience of having cameras everywhere and affordable, everyone is video blogging these days from the teen who talks about what she ate last night for dinner while her mother is calling her in the background to people like Rosie who just turn the camera on and let her stream of consciousness be caught by the camera. That’s all well and good if you’re Rosie, because you’re famous, anything you do people find fascinating but not so much if you’ve never had your fifteen minutes of fame. So as quickly as I started watching other Vblogs I stopped and thought about what I wanted to talk about and who I wanted to reach. One of the blogs that I had written that had garnered a lot of attention (and got me a regular writing gig for the Sierra Gay Mens Newslettter) was a blog I wrote about being a forty-something gay during Pride week and wondering where I fit in. The responses I got from men who were as I call them, “average garden variety gays” was staggering and I thought to myself, “Yeah, I have something that other people can relate to here. Not everyone can be gay thin and not all of us are walking around at a Pride parade with our assless leather chaps and harness on with a rainbow flag tattooed to our left buttocks.” And so the Forty-Something Gay video blog was born.

The next step is deciding the way you want to be filmed – long shot or headshot. This will make a difference (in whether or not you wear pants) and also how much of what’s behind you will be seen. I draped fabric behind me, had lights all over the place and then eventually decided to keep it simple and go for the head and shoulders shot with my vintage signed litho from the Wizard of Oz behind me. Clothing is a trial and error process that you just have to do with as open of a mind as you possibly can. Because of the camera and the way I was shooting (and the sixteen Oreos I’d eaten) nothing was going to look great to me so you settle for what looks “good enough” and go on your way. After all, you can change your shirt, getting rid of your six chins is a little harder without a lot of Scotch tape, makeup and the right lighting!

You then have to decide on the content. Are you going to just turn the camera on and let it rip or do you have an idea what you want to say? A lot of the VBlogs that are popular now like Ask A Gay Man (Read my blog on this guy here… Ask A Gay On Outzonetv.com Needs To Go Away ) have a lot of edits to make them look the way that they do. I decided not to go that way for mine. First, it takes a lot of time to get the editing right and I’m one person doing way too many things as it is and second, I feel like it loses some of its spontaneity if you can see they edited their blog entries. I wrote down some bullet points (and then ignored most of them) trying to stay on topic but knowing I’d digress because that’s just who I am. I read somewhere that the ideal time limit is three minutes but in my first couple I tipped the timer at four and five minutes. Looking at the entries, I agree, three minutes is probably the optimum but without a timer ticking down in front of me and even with as fast as I talk, this was just the length of my first couple entries and I decided to be okay with it. I did decide to make actual “episodes” and name them for a focused topic I’d be discussing, edit a piece into the start and end of each episode so that it would look more professional (and also someday I could sell the box set like The Mary Tyler Moore Show or something – yeah, right but stranger things have happened, right?) and I took a deep breath and just dove into the deep end of the pool.

I have a lot more to learn about this medium (like never showing my profile again – EE Gads it’s awful) but on the whole I think they look pretty good and what’s even more important is that my Mother thinks so – she even went as far as to say I looked handsome but what are Mother’s for if not to lie to you?

As I do my weekly video post, I will let you know when I discover more video blogging secrets and also about why I decided to post it on YouTube (to save space on my server and reach more people than those that just visit my site – okay, well I guess I don’t have to write about this later now). And what I’m sure will be “only Scott” experiences as I try to maneuver through this new frontier. I hope you’ll come along with me on the journey and hope you enjoy the first episode of Forty-Something Gay! How to go from writing your blog to video blogging (without hurting yourself or those around you) – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Gay Justice Gets Syndicated – Don’t Get Me Started!

As if we really need another reality courtroom show, on September 10, 2007 television is getting its newest Judge Judy in the form of a gay man from Miami, Judge David Young. Or perhaps he’s the Judge Judy Garland? Apparently he’s a very well known and respected judge (his most famous case to date was when he sent those two drunk America West pilots to jail in 2005). The marketing campaign says he doles out justice and occasionally breaks into show tunes. Gays playing the game of televised life; in case you haven’t noticed, we’ve just lost a turn again and moved six steps backward. Gay Justice gets syndicated – Don’t Get Me Started!

This show first came to my attention (as most things do) by the commercial that came on when I was watching something else. It caught my attention only because I was trying to convince myself I hadn’t heard what the voiceover had said. One of the lines of the voiceover was, “Justice with a snap” and it showed him snapping like the gay characters from In Living Color (portrayed hysterically) by Damon Wayans and David Alan Grier. On a comedy show in the 1980’s it’s funny but on a reality court show in 2007…I Object! (Watch Men On Films Here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vScxRgkzRsQ)

Now look, I have nothing against this guy and yes, I guess it is something that he can put in his bio that he has a partner of twelve years and still have a nationally syndicated court show but I know for a fact that there are gays out there who don’t burst into show tunes, snap at things and call one another, “Giiiiirl!” Unfortunately those gays never seem to make it on television because I guess they just aren’t gay “enough.” Thank you television executives for once again, reducing us to the stereotype you think the world adores and we gays abhor. This isn’t new for Hollywood, similar to the Jewish studio heads back in the Golden Age of Hollywood that were always afraid that actors or scripts were “too Jewish” so somehow in their minds they thought that if they went with the Jewish stereotype it would be okay because they would be laughing with the anti-Semitic public instead of the public laughing at the studio or finding out that men like Louis B. Mayer was a big Jew. (Who knew? Everyone!) So you’ll notice that usually when you see a Jewish character in old movies he’s got the big nose and is looking for a penny in the sewer (while the large black maid rolls her eyes and bugs them out of her head when the flapjack she’s making flips and hits the ground instead of the pan). But you would think that an industry that went from silent movies to Technicolor movie musicals like The Wizard of Oz in a little under ten years would have evolved a little more by now, wouldn’t you?

Well, it hasn’t as you can see from movies like I Now Pronounce You Chuck And Larry (though I didn’t see it and apparently no one else did either because it made something like three dollars at the box office), William Sledd (the 23 year old Gap Manager who is a YouTube sensation with his swishy, “Ask A Gay Man” video blogs now featured on Outzonetv.com) and now Judge David Young who supposedly brings a “new perspective on justice.”

I don’t know about you guys but I’m tired of being Anne Frank, being persecuted, forced to live life hidden from view and eventually being killed all the while saying, “In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.”  And I’m not too wild about being Shylock the Jewish character from Shakespeare’s Merchant Of Venice either, “I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions: fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, heal’d by the same means, warm’d and cool’d by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?” Maybe God knew what he was doing when he made me a Jewish gay man because at times I certainly identify with one or both of the above characters/people.

I just wish that there was a place for us gays on television where we didn’t have to swish to get our wish of getting our fifteen minutes of fame. I get it, swishy is funny and sometimes when I’m writing this blog or “on” at a party I can be as swishy as my dirty martini and limp wrist will allow. But wouldn’t it be nice to have a gay on television who is painted a little more three dimensional than his highlights? Maybe someday (and I’m back to being Anne Frank) but for now I think I’ll skip the honorable Judge’s justice with a snap and pull out my DVD of Gentlemen’s Agreement (The 1947 classic movie where Gregory Peck as a magazine story writer tells everyone he’s Jewish to see how he’ll be treated differently than a gentile – a must see again and again for everyone.) But for those that are interested, I don’t want anyone to think I’m not supporting my fellow gays and doing them justice so here’s Judge David Young’s website http://www.judgedavidyoung.com/ . Gay Justice gets syndicated – Don’t Get Me Started!

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My MikWright Coaster Debut Is A Bust – Don’t Get Me Started!

So by now you’ve all heard the big news that my Mother and I were immortalized this past spring by the darling duo at MikWright by being turned into greeting cards. In a word, they are “fabulous” and great for any occasion so you should probably always have about a hundred of each on hand so you’re covered for your friends’ birthdays, anniversaries or colonics. (Click here to see them and get all the ordering info http://www.somelikeitscott.com/somelikefaves.html ) As if being a greeting card wasn’t enough, most recently, our cards were turned into coasters! So now you can put your drink on my face (I’ve had worse on it). As my pals at MikWright sent me the cards before they came out to the public at large, I haven’t been to a MikWright retailer to actually see the cards in person but with the coasters, I wanted to do the whole, see myself on a rack thing (I know, a fantasy for some of my enemies but this is a different type of rack and I’m sure you get the idea). So yesterday I went to one of the local stores that carry MikWright products. My MikWright coaster debut is a bust – Don’t Get Me Started!

As you can imagine, I was wild with anticipation. And as I parked the car, the thoughts started whizzing through my head faster than celebrities through rehab. Did my hair look as good as my Mother’s wig that I’m wearing on the card? Would I be recognized? (Okay, you see the card and know that I would never be recognized and yet the thought still went through my head) Would they ask me to do an impromptu signing of the cards and coasters? Where was a Sharpie when I needed it? Was I dressed appropriately? Would I ever be able to go into another store without bodyguards or sunglasses larger than my head after this Some Like It Scott sighting? My head filled with these thoughts and with my body almost hit by a passing car, I entered the store.

The store was one of your typical “gift” stores that have more chazerei than you could shake a stick at with every inch of everything being covered by something that you’ll probably never need in your lifetime yet someone must be buying this crap because they’re still in business. You know the type of items, the cheese spreaders that come in a package of six with a painted resin olive at the end of them. Who needs this shit will someone please tell me?

I enter the store and quickly scan to see if the customers are the type that are going to tear me to pieces when they realize that such a big card/coaster star is in their midst. Just as quickly I realize that there are no customers in the store. It is me and one teenage salesgirl behind the counter. The only sound in the thick overly potpourri’d environment is the “tappaccatta, tappaccatta” of the salesgirl’s price gun.

Like a drug sniffing dog or psychic that finds missing children with amazing skills I never knew I possessed, almost immediately I found myself in front of the rack of MikWright cards. Posing nonchalantly by the rack, I turned to the salesgirl and spoke…

Me: Do you sell the MikWright coasters too?

Teen Steam Girl: (She looked a little like Alyssa Milano from Who’s The Boss when she had that exercise video out called, “Teen Steam” – I know, maybe all of three people just got this reference, maybe) Huh?

Me: These are MikWright cards. (I hold one up with my left hand and do a sweeping, Price Is Right Janice, “All This Can Be Yours” arm with my right) Do you carry their other products?

Teen Steam Girl: I have to ask someone else (she exits to the back room)

(I spin the rack of cards like my eighth grade dance partner when we were dancing to “Boogie Oogie Oogie” by Taste Of Honey back in the day, feverishly looking for my card or my Mother’s. I find my Mother’s but not mine.)

Teen Steam Girl: (Returning) We don’t carry them.

Me: (Holding up my Mother’s card) May I ask you something?

Teen Steam Girl: (Unintelligible grunt)

Me: (Undaunted with exuberance normally associated with someone acting in children’s theatre) Have you sold a lot of these cards? Because this is my Mother. We’re on MikWright cards and coasters!

Teen Steam Girl: (No change in expression) I don’t know. It’s my first day.

(Replacing the card on the rack, I walk to the door crestfallen and as the tinkle of the bell on the door is heard I walk into the 103 degree parking lot back to the Mini. FADE TO BLACK)

No paparazzi, no crowds like Lindsay Lohan or that God awful Star Jones gets with the gay husband – nothing. But be assured the next time I’m in LA with my LA gays or in Palm Springs I’ll be going to one of those stores in one of the big gayborhoods and I’ll be getting my recognition, dammit. I don’t care if I have to stage and rehearse it beforehand with paid actors it’s going to happen alright. And if I didn’t have this blog and/or knew how to keep my mouth shut, I could have possibly convinced the friends I took with me to believe it was the first time I had seen the cards and coasters with the friends I took with me. Oh who am I kidding, this is just another chapter in the life of “The Greatest Never Was Been There’s Ever Been.” My MikWright coaster debut is a bust – Don’t Get Me Started!

Read about the card adventure…

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The Gay, Gay, Gayer Than Gay Power Gay Poolside Party – Don’t Get Me Started!

I have to begin by saying that I have been to perhaps all of about three pool parties in my lifetime and this was the first one in my forties. I think the main reason (besides never being invited to any) is that for me the getting ready process to go to a pool party (let alone one swimming with gays) is just way too much pressure. I don’t know if I should fake tan or go as I am. I don’t know if I should wear my bathing suit (ye gads, that’s right, I only own one which I bought under protest when I was in Palm Springs three years ago at the insistence of my pal – read the story of the Gay, Gay, Gayer Than Gay Weekend here… http://www.somelikeitscott.com/somelikegay.html ) or bring the bathing suit and then it’s all about the bag you bring to carry it to and fro. The list of things to worry about is endless and makes me so insane that by the time I get there I’m all ready done. But as this was to be a poolside party it made the decision easier, “the” bathing suit would not make an appearance, it would be shorts. Still there was much more to worry about because after all, this was going to be the gay, gay, gayer than gay power poolside party – Don’t Get Me Started!

The party’s occasion was a thirty year anniversary party for two guys and was being thrown by a lovely power lesbian couple. So right from the get go you know that the food will be great and that when people speak you won’t be sure if it was one of the pool floats that sprung a leak or the partygoers inserting an “s” into every word they sssay. (You get the idea) Now what makes this event even more interesting is that the way that I know the lesbian couple is through my mother, who sold them their home so here I was at the gay, gay, gayer than gay poolside party with my parents. (How many people can say that, huh?) Here we stood, my mother rhinestoned to the nines, my father in his dress pants and Tom Jones styled Italian leather boots and me in my shorts outfit looking like a Garanimal threw up on me. We looked like refugees from a PFLAG meeting. And you should have seen everyone’s faces when I would start talking to them and then say, “Oh, and these are my parents.” Priceless – just like the Mastercard ads – “some things money can’t buy…”

There was “staff” which included a male bartender complete with perfect highlights that was making everything (and when I say “making” I’m thinking he went home with more than tips) but specializing in Mojitos. (I admit that I had him tell me the flavored ones before deciding to go for a regular one because I wanted to hear the extra “S’s” in raspberry) and a famous lesbian caterer from New York who was all business but threw my mother off her mark. My mother asking one of the lesbians throwing the party, “Now the caterer, she’s so pretty and nice where is her husband?” Lesbian: “Well, her “partner” is right over there.” My mother: “Oh <knowing nod> well, she’s lovely, isn’t she?” At one point there was a guy with a baby and as my mother whisked over and remarked how pretty the baby was and asked how old she was, the proud father gave the response, “Around three months old.” As we walked away my mother got closer to me and talking out of the side of her mouth she stage whispered to me, “No wedding ring…do you think there’s a “partner” somewhere?” Egging her on I said, “What do you think? He said the baby is “around” three months old that means he doesn’t KNOW when the baby was actually born. Like when we took in the cats that were strays and had no idea how old they were until the Vet guessed they were six months old from their teeth. A baby doesn’t have any teeth. Can you say surrogacy or black market adoption?” She gave me a knowing nod and then we moved toward the buffet.

The good news is that this was not a twinkie party. These guys had been together for thirty years so the partygoers were mostly friends for years and the guests were for the most part age appropriate. Still it wouldn’t be a gay party without me ending up hanging with the heterosexuals instead of the homosexuals. There was the woman I started talking with who also owned cats so we had some inane conversation about cats while her husband stood there getting increasingly uncomfortable as the pool area filled with gays, not knowing if he should cover his crotch or ass as to not “tempt” the gays. (I could have saved him the anxiety as no gay would have wanted him) Then there was the couple from New York, the woman worked with a member of the celebrated couple and her boyfriend was this typical meatball who talked about how he couldn’t find a job here because he was fired as a cook in New York but as the conversation went on he suddenly was telling the story about how he had been cast as a lead in an independent film that had lost its funding with a storyline that was so convoluted that I can’t even repeat it because who would remember or care.

When I finally found a gay to talk to and was having a normal conversation, his boyfriend came over, smiled and nodded through a couple of minutes of conversation and then whisked him away – neither one to be seen again. I guess the boyfriend may have thought I was trying to make a move on his man…I can assure you that I was not and continually brought up my guy but you know the gays, we’re a suspicious lot on the whole and tend to spray our territory like cats. The only other person I really had a conversation with during my three hours at the party was one half of another long term gay couple who you’d have no trouble picturing wearing caftans and lots of rings. You know the type, they make everything they tell you seem confidential and touch your wrist a lot as they “let you in” on what they’re telling you.

All in all, I would have to say that my parents were the most interesting and fun people I talked to all night. So as I said my goodbyes and went on my way, all I could think was that although a lovely party maybe I just wasn’t meant to be a power gay of Las Vegas. And somehow that was just fine with me. The gay, gay, gayer than gay power poolside party – Don’t Get Me Started!

 
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Are Flip Flops The Fashion Faux Pas Of The Century? – Don’t Get Me Started!

As I went for the door to leave my house on Sunday to go to a Power Gay Poolside Party my guy stopped me and said, “You’re not wearing those flip flops are you?” Sounding like a high school girl walking out of the house to go to a party wearing a cropped top showing too much of her bountiful abdomen I said, “Come on, everyone is wearing them.” To which my guy replied, “How many episodes have we watched of What Not To Wear? And you’re still going to wear the shoes to a party that you wear to take out the garbage?” And so with my defiant spirit a blazing I left wearing my red Old Navy flip flops thinking I was just fine and would be as cool as all the other kids at the party. But at the same time I began to question myself…what if I was wrong? Are flip flops the fashion faux pas of the century? – Don’t Get Me Started!

As I arrived at the party I realized in an instant it must be Saint Nick (no, not really, just seemed like the logical next line). One by one the gays came in, two by two and as I looked from foot to foot I saw one Kenneth Cole sandal after the other. I don’t care if they were the big leather band slip-on kind that sort of gave the appearance of your Dad’s old slippers or if they were what I call the “I am Spartacus” sandal that are way too chunky and strappy for their own good but the cheese stood alone (in this case me) with my cheapo flip flops on. My guy was right and I felt kind of bad and out of step as it were…that is until I saw the guy with the bright green crocs on that matched nothing else he had on. (Read my blog about Crocs here… http://www.somelikeitscott.com/2006.09.01_arch.html#1157242784198 ) At least my flip flops were adding a dash of color to my outfit, right?  

The thing is that I am not a short or sandal wearer on the whole so truth be told, I really didn’t have the appropriate attire for this event to from the get go. And it just didn’t seem to make sense to me to go out and sportswear myself up like a 1970’s J.C. Penney catalog for one party. I usually only wear my flip flops to take out the garbage so why did I think that I was going to suddenly turn twenty and into an Abercrombie model with my flip flops, khaki shorts and shirt? For the most part I think that flip flops are not the most comfortable and certainly not the most fashionable choice one can make but I didn’t have sandals so it was either the flops or tennis shoes with socks pushed down reminiscent of the 1980’s and leg warmers so I had gone ahead and made the flip flop choice.

I remember this guy I used to work with and his flip flops or what he called his “shower shoes.” He was a very large man who the minute he opened his mouth you knew you were off to the gay races. Well, one time he was across the country and had checked into a hotel where I was going to be checking in a couple of days and he called me to give me a status update about the rooms and hotel itself. Almost before I could get a “hello” out he squealed, “Girl, we gots to move hotels. I’m telling you honey, this carpet is so greasy I wouldn’t even take my shower shoes off to walk around this room. Mama can’t stay here and trust me when I say you’ll thank me for not letting you check in here either!”  

Now for you savvy Some Like It Scott readers it’s about this time in reading the blog that you’re wondering where all my observations are about the party, the party goers and the food. More on that tomorrow but today it’s about me and my bad choice with the flip flops and whether or not you think like Stockard Channing in Grease, “there are worse things I could do”. Are flip flops the fashion faux pas of the century? – Don’t Get Me Started!

 
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My 12 Hours On The Beyonce Lemonade Diet – Don’t Get Me Started!

Let me start by saying that I’m not really fat per se but at the same time, I’m carrying around at least fifteen pounds I could afford to lose and when I recently tried to convince my doctor that perhaps it was muscle mass (from working out at the gym) that was making me tip the height to body weight chart on its ear, he felt my bicep and dryly said, “I don’t think so.” And while I’m not a fatty boomballatty, I’m not “gay thin” either. I was in LA last week hanging with what I lovingly call “My LA Gays” and let me say that I look like the Star Jones “before” ad and they look like the “after” (if you know what I mean) although none of them have had “medical intervention” (read that blog here…Star Jones Please Please Go Away) I had heard that when Beyonce was getting ready to do Dreamgirls she had decided that she needed to lose weight so that she could look more like gay thin icon, Diana Ross (which anyone who knows the musical, knows that while there are similarities, it is NOT the story of the Supremes although Baby Love, it’s a fabulous musical) so she went on this lemon water with maple syrup and cayenne pepper fast and lost twenty pounds. I thought, perfect right? I read about it and found out that it’s really called “The Master Cleanse” and after getting the supplies, I was all ready to start. So this past Friday morning bright and early I made my lemon water and drank it all day, by 7pm that night I would have eaten the sofa. Thus my story, my 12 hours on the Beyonce Lemonade Diet – Don’t Get Me Started!

The real idea behind the supposed cleanse is to rid your body of toxins, give your colon a cleaning out (like your closet in spring) and give you a clean slate as it were to begin to re-toxify yourself all over again with the environment around you when you’re done. On my recent family vacation my sister-in-law and I had discussed it and we were ready to go on this thing come hell or hot water spewing out our ass (remember that it’s a cleanse with cayenne pepper – come on what do you think is going to happen?) to be thinner then thin on our next meeting. My massage therapist had gone on it and he had lost nine pounds in six days and said he felt more energized than he ever had in his life during and after the cleanse. I had also read in US Magazine (a publication as truthful as the bible, if you know what I mean and I think that you do) that one of the Coreys (can’t remember if it was Haim or Feldman) had also gone on it and lost over 150 pounds to get in shape for their new reality show. (He could have saved himself, no one is watching that thing and for good reason)

So with all the success stories that were better than Anna Nicole on TrimSpa, I was ready for the adventure to begin on Friday. I chose that day because I was working from home and while I didn’t expect major action on the first day, I was taking the precautionary methods that made sense in this situation. Well, it’s a damn good thing that I did because approximately one hour after my first glass of the Jekyll and Hyde fluid (and a cup of “Smooth Move” tea that you’re supposed to drink with it) I was off to the races (or moving as quickly as I could to the bathroom). I’ll spare you the details of what followed next but let me say that it was not pretty and you could hear my yelping for miles like a gay caught in a bear trap in the woods. (And let me say that days after that my stomach and my bowel movements are still not back to normal.)

I drank and shit, drank and shit all day on Friday and stayed away from the kitchen (especially the refrigerator where my guy’s famous homemade barbeque ribs and greens were sitting in there in all their deliciousness). I kept talking myself into another glass of the yellow liquid, trying to convince myself that it was the most delicious thing ever, much better than the Popeye’s chicken they showed on the commercials on television. Much better than the home cooked deliciousness that was in my own frige. To be honest, much like they say, it’s not the heat, it’s the humidity…it wasn’t the lemonade it was the fact that my ass was more sore than a boy crack whore on Saturday night in an alley going for ten cents a dance (if you know what I mean).

To say my stomach was making odd noises is an understatement. Like a scene from Aliens or an old car going over cobblestone streets my stomach would lurch and then scream as if it wanted out of my body. All the while, my guy is saying, “I want to be supportive so let me know if it bothers you if I eat in front of you.” God love him, he knew I was crazy and doomed for failure but he did try to show his support. Unfortunately I only heard part of his sentence as I was running back to the bathroom at the time.

Finally at 7pm having drunk all the lemonade that I was supposed to for the day, my stomach screaming like a chick in a horror flick being chased by a killer in a ski mask, and my ass so sore that I thought I’d spend the rest of my life sitting sidesaddle, I had to end my cleanse, my fast, my stupidity. I went right for the ribs and greens and boy were they delicious.

Look, I know that I need to eat less and work out more (or eat seventeen small meals a day and jump on a mini-trampoline while I’m on conference calls all day in my office or something) but I just haven’t been able to do it. My heart (or mouth in this case) just doesn’t want to do what my head knows it should. However, now that I’ve seen yet another quick fix the celebrity world tried to sell us is not in fact any sort of fix at all (disclaimer – for me) I’ll resign myself to trying to get to the gym more and eating smaller portions to lose the fifteen pounds.

Let’s face it, if I’m really honest with myself, it’s not like Bill Condon (director of Dreamgirls) is waiting for me to lose the weight to have me star in his next film, or VH1 is waiting for me to lose the weight to go on some bizarre reality show that no one will watch anyway because I’m still the “Greatest Never Was Been There Ever Was” so as long as my guy loves me and my cats enjoy “kneading” on my extra stomach fat that’s the way it’s going to have to be until I can motivate myself to stay away from the Oreos and get on the elliptical again and again and again.

There are no quick fixes for us normal folk, it’s all a lot of hard fucking work and the sooner I realize that, the better. Sure if I had Oprah’s chef cooking for me or Michael Thurmond (from Extreme Makeover – love him) working me out or even one of Beyonce’s entourage wiping my sensitive ass during the process I guess I could stick to a plan but I’m sure that Oprah would tell me that it’s really my inside that needs the fixing (mentally) before I can lose the weight and has nothing to do with all the assistants in the world fawning over me and telling me I look fabulous when I drop six ounces. So hey, I tried to be a celebrity but during that twelve hours I felt less like a celebrity and more like Morale from A Chorus Line when she sings, “I felt nothing, I’m feeling nothing and he said “nothing” could get a girl transferred. They all felt something but I felt nothing except the feeling that this bullshit was absurd.” My 12 hours on the Beyonce Lemonade Diet – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Donating A Dollar (Or More) At The Register! – Don’t Get Me Started!

I get it, I get it…it’s an easy way to donate to charitable causes by having a cashier ask you if you want to donate a dollar to MDA or some other charity gets on my nerves and let me tell you why. It’s checkout emotional blackmail. Donating a dollar (or more) at the register! – Don’t Get Me Started!

As I have long stated, I am not a “Geffen Gay.” You know, one of those supposed gays with a large disposable income, two retrievers and a Jeep Cherokee (Hey, I’m just going by what they show in the ads, right?). And although I’ll probably never buy a $25,000 table at an AIDS benefit, I do contribute to HRC (Human Rights Campaign), GMHC (Gay Men Health Crisis), Habitat For Humanity and other charities what I can afford when I can. Long has it driven me to distraction that in the same envelope you receive the “thank you” for your donation that you also receive another envelope with the charity having their hand out, looking for more of your money. You’d think they’d have the good taste to at least let you revel in your “I did a good deed” euphoria for ten minutes or maybe a week before they slam you with the reality that everyone is being discriminated against or dying because you couldn’t come up with another $125 after the $75 you just gave! I get it, they are charitable causes that need money to operate and help people and I appreciate it but come on, am I the only person that is donating? Sometimes it feels that way when you see the letter personally addressed to you from Elizabeth Taylor telling you “how far we’ve come but how far we have to go, Scott.” And that’s exactly why they do it. I mean, who can say no to the queen of the Nile? Maggie The Cat? Or National Velvet for Chrissakes? You’re doomed and so is your checkbook. The point is I usually always end up giving a little bit more and then when the next “thank you we need more of your money” letter comes, I just throw it away without opening it or looking for the free return address labels. (Read that blog here… Using Return Address Labels That Charities Send)

But with Jerry Lewis dusting off his tux, prepare yourself to see firemen with their boots off in the middle of the street looking for money (you know, kind of like that guy you thought you were dating in 1987 but he turned out just to be a go go boy/prostitute who dressed like a fireman and was always taking his boots off and leaving them in all the most inconvenient places in your apartment until you finally tripped over them and chipped a tooth – just a guess). With Labor Day around the corner the supermarkets are asking you that dreaded question as you pay for your groceries, “Would you like to donate a dollar to MDA?” First I have to ask, “Is it just me? I thought that they found a cure for this like ten years ago or something?” I’m not trying to be funny or mean, I really thought that Jerry had told us that at one point. Well, whatever, they apparently still need our money much more than we need to hear Jerry sing at this point. And the point is that if you don’t donate you look like a complete loser in front of the other people in line as the cashier gives you every dirty look she can for $1.49. So your choice is to donate and fill out the piece of paper to let everyone know you donated or don’t and look like an asshole. Since the inception of this new way to raise money I’ve begun to embrace my inner asshole. (And no, that’s not some new exercise to make your ass better for gay sex!)

It’s not just MDA, they get you in the pet store too, asking you to donate a dollar to the homeless pets. Well, I took in two stray cats who now live in the lap of luxury complete with an electronic litter box and an electric drinking fountain so no, I don’t feel the need to donate to the homeless pets, I’ve already given my bed, allowed most of my furniture to be covered in cat hair (that I’m constantly using the adhesive rollers on to keep the hair situation at bay), my money and most of all, affection that I had no idea would make me a complete blithering idiot when they do even the slightest thing like jump in my lap and purr. We also leave food out for another stray that won’t let us get near him but he’s desperate for food so I’m covered when it comes to the pet thing but what to do when it’s a human charity?

I can’t very well walk around whipping out my tax deductible receipts for all the “human” donations that I’ve made and I can’t just ignore a fireman or Suzy as she checks me out at the market so for once in my life I have found that I could do what no one thought possible from me. Use an economy of words, be polite and yet firm at the same time. While making eye contact I say, “No thank you.” No more and no less and if Suzy or anyone else thinks I’m a bastard or asshole, it’s on them because I was polite and to the point. I’ve decided to make this one less thing I worry about, feel guilty about or try to overcompensate for by giving all my thoughts on the subject when all they really want is a dollar out of me. And sometimes when I’m feeling major pressure from a nasty checkout woman, after I say no I ask her to add a candy bar to my order! And I feel better. Donating a dollar (or more) at the register! – Don’t Get Me Started!

 
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Gays In The Workplace (The New Ant Farm For Straights) – Don’t Get Me Started!

There’s a phenomenon that happens in corporate America when you have a company that is supposedly non-discriminatory against your sexual preference. In my experience, the straight people in the office are either fine with it and it never comes up or they are so fascinated by you that you become some sort of strange science experiment. Gays in the workplace (the new ant farm for straights) – Don’t Get Me Started!

Remember when you were little and you would get those green plastic ant farms? You’d fill it with the sand and then you would send away for the ants and in a few weeks you could watch the ants go up, down and around the other plastic hurdles in the flat world they were living in being constantly on display like say, Lindsay Lohan. For some of us, it was only interesting for a couple days or a week but for some they still have them today (on the shelf next to their Sea Monkeys). Well, honestly, the corporate culture seems to be one of those kids that just can’t get enough of the ants going up, down and around hurdles.

I work for a company that has 1400 employees across the US and yet it never fails, when another gay is hired anywhere, I invariably get the call from someone. “We just hired Steven for the Florida location. I think you’re going to “like” him…I mean, he IS one of you. On your team I mean. And he’s good looking.” Where in the hell does anyone think that A) This is acceptable and B) That I give a shit? What is it affirmative action for gays? Am I supposed to be thankful another one of “us” got in? Am I supposed to race home and look through my gay membership lists to see if this guy is on it? (No, such a list does not exist to the best of my knowledge) The point is that I just don’t get it and what is so strange is that the straight people think they’re being so subtle and clever as they wink, nod, use their fingers like quotation marks and get to say things like, “he’s on your team.” Offensive, sure but the fact that they think they’re being “with it” is the harder thing to stomach.

A prime example is the blog entry from yesterday about the new IT gay hitting on me at work. When one of the straight guys found out about it he said (all wide eyed and interested like he was watching open heart surgery on the Discovery channel), “Yeah, I was wondering when I introduced you two if you were getting any kind of a vibe or anything.” I just rolled my eyes and said, “Look I have no gaydar and there’s no one here attractive enough or interesting enough for me to want to fuck so no, it didn’t even register with me that he might be gay.” The guy just stared at me a bit broken hearted looking and walked away from my desk just shaking his head. I’m sure he was thinking, “Gee, they don’t have the gaydar? Hmmm, I thought that was like new cars and GPS systems, just came standard.”

And what really sends the point home is when your straight co-workers really treat you like you’ve entered the ant farm. You’re in a meeting or something and they watch you like a Billie Jean King tennis match, heads going back