Thanksgivings Past – Don’t Get Me Started!

Well kids, here it is, Thanksgiving again. Time to pull out the cheap paper plates with the scalloped edges, place your hand on it, draw around your fingers and make you holiday turkey art!

What am I thankful for this Thanksgiving you ask? I’m thankful for all of you who come and read my blogs, pass them to friends and those who comment letting me know when I’m right on the money or so far off the target I’m like a blind guy at shooting practice.

So as I take a couple of days to show my family just how thankful I am to have all of them, I didn’t want to leave you without what to watch or read so welcome to the Some Like It Scott’s Thanksgivings Past posting.

Here’s a video blog about dealing with your relatives this Thanksgiving:

http://hubpages.com/hub/Forty-Something-Gay---How-To-Have-A-Relatively-Painless-Thanksgiving

My resistance to the holiday season last year (which proved unsuccessful):

http://hubpages.com/hub/Stop-The-Holidays-I-Want-To-Get-Off

How to answer those pesky questions you get when you go back to work after the holiday:

http://hubpages.com/hub/How-To-Answer-The-Dreaded--How-Was-Your-Holiday-Question

The following link will take you to the first year of my blog and my take on Thanksgiving (as well as the rest of the month of November). Some of these blogs were created for the website outzonetv.com at the request of their editor. Enjoy:

 http://www.somelikeitscott.com/2006.11.01_arch.html

Finally, do you best to enjoy your holiday kids. I know for some it can be very difficult being around so much family and food but I want you to remember something. My grandmother used to always say at every holiday for years and years, “This is the last year I’ll make chopped liver.” Or “This is the last year I’ll be making a turkey.” We would roll our eyes at her with great disgust but eventually the year came when she wasn’t there to make the chopped liver or the turkey and we thought, “Wow, she really was sick!” (Or as she once put it, “He got sick and then he died altogether!”) Try to find a way to appreciate those family members you still have because you never really know if this will be your last with them or not. Meanwhile, I intend to spend my holiday running away from the Macy’s people. I’ve gotten so fat that I’m sure they’re going to be hunting me down, trying to put strings on me and walk me down Broadway behind the Garfield balloon - Don’t Get Me Started!

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If You Don’t Know My Name, Don’t Try To Guess – Don’t Get Me Started!

Look, I’m not good with names either. I know all the “tricks of the professional trade” where you’re supposed to repeat the person’s name, make eye contact and then think of an animal that they remind you of that has the same first letter of the name as the person’s name and then you’re sure to remember their name – whatever – I’ve never done it (and maybe that’s why I can’t remember anyone’s name). But here’s the deal, if you don’t know my name, don’t try to guess – Don’t Get Me Started!

I know that some people have had the experience of someone screaming the wrong person’s name in the throes of passion but having been with the same man for the past twenty years and the man I was with prior to that had the same first name as the current one, the chances of me using the wrong name during sex is an impossibility at this point. (Unless of course I ever get shoved back out into the dating scene at some point and have to date someone who doesn’t have the same first name of basically everyone I’ve ever dated, then I could see the possibility of the wrong name being called in bed somewhere at some point at some time). Well, to those of you who have that problem or who may have that problem, this blog may not help you.

What I’m talking about is once again Starbucks (at the moment). Not my daily Starbucks where I’m known far and wide as the Scott that I am, I’m talking about the weekend Starbucks location. As I’ve written before, I’m not wild about the fact that the baristas at my Starbucks are now soccer moms instead of the wild boys of Starbucks (not to be confused with Duran Duran’s classic, “Wild Boys”) and these mom-like gals seem to have no retention of names. Last weekend the woman at the counter took my drink order and then said, “Um…is it…Roger?” This weekend it was a different woman (though frankly at this point they all look alike to me. I don’t think all black people look alike but I DO think that all soccer moms look alike, does that make me a soccerist instead of a racist?) The woman was staring at me as if my name might suddenly appear on my forehead and said, “I want to say your name is…Peter?” I wanted to say, “I want to say WRONG – stop “trying” or giving the illusion you’re trying and just ask me for fuck sake!” but instead I mustered an insincere smile and just said, “It’s Scott.”

Years ago when I was working for a large company I discovered that when I would go out into the field and see all the workers in the stores they would all know my name but I didn’t know their names (there were 1500 employees across seventeen locations). They would greet me with big smiles and say, “Scott!” and what I discovered was that I had a stock response without even trying to have a stock response. I probably used it for years without ever knowing it. I would say, “Hey YOU! How are YOU? It’s so good to see YOU.” When I finally discovered that this was what I was doing I’m sure I’d been doing it for years. I was ashamed and embarrassed but I have to say that it worked. Sure works a lot better than putting on my Great Karnack turban and holding an envelope to my head like the late Johnny Carson and trying to guess the person’s name.

This would be all great if I would take my own advice but such is not the case. The other day a vendor just “popped” in at work and after speaking to her for awhile (and her boss that she brought with her) I called her by another vendor’s name. My excuse was that she had only been in my office once before but the damage was done.  I haven’t heard from her since even though I sent the apology email.

What I have discovered is that it’s no crime not to remember someone’s name it’s a bigger crime to just go on a guessing binge and expect to get it right. While there may always be a rabbit to pull out of a top hat, there are far too many options when it comes to names.  Better to follow this golden rule, if you don’t know my name, don’t try to guess – Don’t Get Me Started!

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The Christian Right Is Right, Gays Make Gays – Don’t Get Me Started!

A recent personal experience got me thinking about the assertion that a lot of Christian Right, Mormons, and people in general think, that if a gay is around a child they will make the child gay. This type of thinking has kept gay teachers out of the school system in certain cases, thrown good gay Scout Leaders out of scouting and in most recent days this fear was used to keep gays from continuing to have the right to marry in California. I read with everyone else the stories on the websites telling people that if you let gays marry, they will teach kids about gay sex in the school system (and most say that they will teach kids in the second grade to really get you going – this is misconstrued by a book that was read in a second grade class about two princes that fall in love and end up living happily ever after running a kingdom together in a classroom in Massachusetts). People with sense know that this isn’t how gays become gays but apparently that “sense” is not something shared by enough people…yet. So I began to think about my own life and my life experiences and do you know what I discovered? The Christian Right is right, gays make gays – Don’t Get Me Started!

For as long as I can remember (and there are photos and old movies to prove it) I have sung, danced and performed. And even though my life has taken a corporate turn, I still put on my emotional makeup each day and enter the theatre that is my life and believe me when I say, the show I perform is exhausting but well worth it. Make no mistake about it, it’s no longer me playing the role of “Barnaby” in Hello Dolly, it’s me playing me (just with a little more flair) going through life as this character that is still being written. Only recently did I begin to think about the start of this character that is me and how it was formed.

A lot of who I am is due to my family. They were the ones who influenced me from the beginning and lo and behold, I’m not from a two Mommy or two Daddy home so right there I should be straight according to the theories. (My brother is straight but I am not.) My parents are still married, my father and I have a healthy and close relationship (so there goes that theory too about gay men being created due to absentee relationships with their fathers or something).  I was in theatre from an early age and some may say that it was this exposure to the casts of people from all different walks of life and lifestyle that created my gayness. Maybe it did to a certain extent but I never wanted to be gay because someone I knew was gay, I was gay from my earliest recollections because it’s just who I was something I always knew to be true.

Around the time that I was twelve or so I started to take dance classes seriously. I loved it. To someone who had been told by his first tap teacher on his first day of tap class when he was like six years old that his mind was going faster than his feet and his feet were never going to catch up (I never went back to that class again) I appreciated every minute in class and worked really hard. Dance came naturally to me but the discipline to master the technique was something that you really had to love in order to make it happen. Natural ability is one thing, having the right teacher is another thing altogether. I have worked with great dancers who learned bad habits from a less than great teacher that it has caused injuries in their careers much earlier than they should ever have encountered. So take this as my commercial for you parents who want to put your kids into dance, find a teacher that is completely qualified.

I’m not sure how my parents found the studio where I was to take but it was across town and the teacher’s name was Gary. I can’t remember really how tall he was I can only remember that he had this haircut that was a boyish cut with bangs on his forehead and he had his signature aviator glasses on which had a gradient color of rose on the lenses. He was dynamic and the many people who took at the studio were enamored with him and his abilities (as is the case with most studios). Did I cut my hair like Gary’s? Did I beg to own a cheap pair of sunglasses that looked like Gary’s? You bet. I wanted to be like him because he was an amazing dancer and everyone loved him.

Gary became a part of our family. And with Gary came his partner, Bill. I don’t ever remember thinking that this was strange or odd that they were two men who were in love they were just Gary and Bill. I don’t really remember the two of them ever holding hands or “making out”( as some would have you believe gays can’t keep their hands off one another) I think the only signs I ever saw were a hug here or there but I remember feeling relieved at meeting them. That’s the best word I can think of, “relieved” because it let me know that I wasn’t going to have to spend my life alone because I was gay. You see, there were no gay role models when I was a kid that let you believe you could have a life that didn’t exist outside a sitcom or the center square on Hollywood Squares.  I may have been beaten up at school called a “sissy” every day but when I was in dance class I was just Scott and when I was around Gary and Bill, I got that they loved one another and were partners and it gave me hope for my future. Instead of believing what was being hurled at me by bullies at school or what was laughed at on television, here was a real life example that there were gay men who could be committed to one another and share their lives.

I stopped going to dance class (I can’t really remember why at this point) and Gary and Bill broke up and went their separate ways but what Gary taught me in dance class and what both Gary and Bill taught me about being a gay man is something so priceless and cherished by me that I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to tell them how much it meant to me. Unfortunately Gary passed away recently and I hadn’t seen him in probably thirty years (it’s been that long since I’ve seen Bill too, I think). Much to no one’s surprise, Bill took a major role in making Gary’s memorial service.

So while some may see gay men being in children’s lives harmful or something awful, I’m here to tell you that it simply isn’t true. Gary and Bill taught me that it was okay to accept myself for who I was and I can’t help but believe a small part of my success as a man who has been with another man for over twenty years now in a completely monogamous relationship is thanks to Gary and Bill as individuals and as a couple. And maybe that’s the way that I “pay” them back, by living my authentic self every day with a man by my side who loves me and whom I love. So while some may think it’s a negative thing I know in my heart and soul that my success as a man and a human being is indeed thanks to a gay man, two gay men, straight people who accepted me and loved me for me and the many other mentors and teachers along the way. So instead of thinking it as negative as many would have you believe, I know it’s a positive thing.  The Christian Right is right, gays make gays – Don’t Get Me Started!

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The Best Thing About Facebook Is… - Don’t Get Me Started!

I was reluctant to join Facebook for all of the most obvious reasons. I’m not someone who really needs or wants to renew a friendship that supposedly spit graham crackers up on me when we were in kindergarten. Just as I imagine people who win the lottery or are just independently wealthy, I can imagine that they have all sorts of relatives, friends and friends of relatives trying to have a relationship with them. However at the urging of my “LA Gays” I joined Facebook and so it began: The “friend” requests, the adding applications so that I could “throw a snowball” at someone, taking quizzes to prove to everyone that I’m an old gay who knows every movie musical imaginable, adding it to my Iphone so that when someone “pokes” me I can immediately poke them back, the posting and “tagging” someone in an uploaded photo, let’s face it – the list goes on and on. And while I try in my own little way to be a part of this online community that I really don’t care all that much about, today I discovered the best thing about Facebook is… - Don’t Get Me Started!

Are you ready? The best part of Facebook is that you can become a “fan” of someone who is famous. Now while most of you are thinking that I would become a “fan” of Bette Midler or someone of the same ilk, I would say that you just are not imaginative enough…AT ALL. No, the first person I became a fan of was Evelyn Champagne King! You may remember her as being discovered when she was cleaning toilets at a record studio and singing while she swished Mr. Clean about the tidy bowl. She went on to have such stunning hits as “Shame” and perhaps one of my all time favorite disco tunes, “I Don’t Know If It’s Right.” For those of you uneducated on this matter let me assist you in discovering why this tune is so great. The lyrics go, “I don’t know if it’s right. To let you make love to me tonight…iiight…iiight.” How you could NOT love it is just beyond me.

So while I think most people are joining Facebook to reconnect with friends from days gone by or to join a group which I joined when a friend sent it to me that is supposedly going to help Darfur. Now I’m not sure how me clicking to be a member is helping the folks in Darfur but rest assured I clicked and am now part of that clique too.

The thing is that the people who are on Facebook are really ON FACEBOOK. I don’t know how they do it but they seem to manage to be on it every second of every day. You can’t “poke” someone or write on someone’s “wall” without them instantaneously writing you back, poking you or whatever. It’s unnerving and at the same time makes you wonder why and how these people have so much damn time on their hands. And maybe just maybe they could really be helping Darfur or helping with one of the other five million causes here in the US if they weren’t so busy sending “charms” or Ben and Jerry’s electronically through Facebook.

Look, I like Facebook enough to still be on it, right? However I want it absolutely made clear that while I am on the book de face, I have a life and really, I would much rather go have a cup of coffee with someone and actually connect with them than write on their wall. True, it’s good for those pals who are far away and I love that a best pal of mine starting writing all sorts of crap on my wall that she had no idea everyone else would see. My favorite was when she wrote, “Who are all these people who are supposedly your “friends” – I don’t know any of them and I’m your best friend.” Loved it! So while some are on Facebook to socialize, some are on there to get laid and others are trying to reconnect with past schoolmates, playmates, and cast mates, I prefer to use it the way it should be used…a way to be a real live fan of a celeb from days gone by (who are still alive – please, I’m not joining to be a fan of a fan club for someone – tacky). And if I had to start with someone, why not Evelyn Champagne King? “Cause what you do to me is a shame! My Momma just don’t understand…” The best thing about Facebook is… - Don’t Get Me Started!

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Arkansas (The State That Just Made It Illegal For Gays To Adopt) Seizes 21 Children From A Christian Ministry – Don’t Get Me Started!

I love irony. I simply can’t get enough of it. If I could I’d eat it for breakfast instead of Fruit Loops (cause after all, isn’t that what all gay men eat?) I would eat it by the bowl full. So when the news came to me (via the Web) by way of a USA Today headline I read with pity for the kids but licked my lips at the irony of the situation. That’s right kids, Arkansas (the state that just made it illegal for gays to adopt) seizes 21 children from a Christian Ministry – Don’t Get Me Started!

Before the Christians get all crazy on me, saying that the minister who was taken into custody is not one of “their” Christians I will tell you, this pedophile’s Christianity is the church he named after himself, The Tony Alamo Christian Ministries. Isn’t there something about “remembering the Alamo” that also feels a little ironic here too? If you’d like to read the actual article, here you go… http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-11-18-arkansas_N.htm?csp=34 but for those who come to my site to read me rant, here we go.

I’m tired. So very tired of hearing how a child can only be raised by one mother and one father. Explain to me all the single parent homes across the country producing well adjusted, healthy adults. For that matter, explain to me all the well adjusted kids who are being raised in gay parent homes. For most, they will say that the whole two parent (woman and man) concept is the way that it should be because that’s the way it has always been. But if that theory ruled our lives and worked, we’d still be rubbing sticks together to make fire, only watching the three major networks and making our younger brother hold the TV antenna in just the right position so that the picture wasn’t fuzzy. In other words, we hopefully have progressed as a civilization just as technology has assisted us. So why (pray tell) when it comes to human relationships are we still seemingly in a period where a man should want to marry a woman because her father will also give him two goats and a milk cow? You laugh but for some, am I really all that far off?

What gets me is that once again it seems to be okay to completely destroy children, breeding them in these religious compounds like puppies in a puppy farm to be abused by the supposed “elders” but don’t let the gays raise them, they just might actually love them and teach them how to have self esteem when all the laws and people around them conspire to spew their hate and hateful way of thinking about them on you because you’re committed to someone of the same sex. I’m sick of watching the whole “To Catch A Predator” show. If Chris Hansen really wants to do something, he’ll get out of the kitchens across the country and head for the compounds. Oh right, the compounds are protected because they’re a “religious” organization. They also don’t pay taxes. So let’s see, they get to destroy children, not pay taxes and then they can spend their extra cash to convince the people who live in their state to not let gays adopt. Hey, that sounds fair. (If you can’t read my sarcasm allow me to let you know – I’M BEING SARCASTIC).

Hey, here’s an idea. How about we help out our faltering economy by taxing churches, synagogues, and any and all religious organizations? Why should they be exempt? Isn’t there supposed to be a separation of church and state anyway? Wouldn’t it have been better if the $300 Million that the Mormons spent on getting Proposition 8 in California passed went to the people in this country who need help? I’m done with religious organizations being exempt from the laws that govern the rest of us. What makes them so special? We all see that they can’t handle this power. Let them be filled with “divine inspiration” but think of how much money we could make if they paid taxes, wouldn’t that be divine?

Look, I know that there are a lot of people who will never accept me for being Jewish, gay, brown haired or just so freaking cute but if we allowed ignorance to rule the world then Sherri Shepherd would have fallen off the flat earth long ago.  Come on people, let’s get out of the dark ages (where we thought blacks could only adopt black children and white parents could only adopt white children) and realize that if there’s a loving home available for a child then our government should be doing everything they can to help that child get into that home and stop looking to see if there are too many vaginas in the house. Until then I guess we’ll all just have to sit and watch the endless parade of irony (I’d like mine with a side of indignation please) Arkansas (the state that just made it illegal for gays to adopt) seizes 21 children from a Christian Ministry – Don’t Get Me Started!

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What Part Of Me Doing A Thousand Different Things When I’m Listening To You Makes You Not Get That I’m Not Interested In What You Have To Say? – Don’t Get Me Started!

To me, I think it’s pretty obvious. While I’m the first to admit that I was born for the short attention span theatre of life this does not factor in when I’m talking to certain people. Whether it’s on the phone or in person, if I start to do stuff like fold my laundry, straighten things up, it’s not because I’m OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder – for the three of you who don’t know what that is) it’s because hello, you’re boring me! What part of me doing a thousand different things when I’m listening to you makes you not get that I’m not interested in what you have to say? – Don’t Get Me Started!

Let me assist you in how it starts for me. In the beginning I’m right there with you. I have a load of empathy which causes me to no longer be able to watch shows like Extreme Home Makeover. I literally have a fear of my tear ducts completely drying up if I watch these shows; in short (which I am) I become a complete blithering mess sobbing to the point that my nose starts running like a four year old on a playground. I have spent long nights staying up listening to a friend explain all the reasons the person they’re dating is a jerk only to be invited to dinner with them and the jerk the following evening. The person who was bitching is bright-eyed as a daisy full of love and there I sit with the daisy, the jerk and I look and feel like hell because I didn’t get any sleep and to top it off they didn’t even break-up so where I ask is my payment for listening to all this shit? Some would say that it comes with being a good friend. And I certainly do consider myself to be a good friend but when it comes to acquaintances or business people who are always trying to sell you something (even if it’s just to go along with their idea) I refuse to give these people the same attention as a true friend with a crisis on their hands (whether it be self-inflicted, imagined or the real deal).

You see, I seem to have one of “those” faces. You know, the kind that people feel as though they can share all of their intimate details with and it will not only make them feel better by getting it off their chest but I will also somehow wave my fairy wand (watch the comments kids) and make it all better at the same time. I get this from the woman at my dry cleaner to people I work with and as I’ve never prided myself on being a patient person, let me just say that if you can’t get it all out in under five minutes you deserve what’s coming your way. If I’m on the phone with you and you’re having a monologue instead of a dialogue then I will turn the television on as the first line of attack. I’m not so insensitive (or stupid) as to not have it on mute but you may hear me chuckle in an inopportune time because something funny just happened on television while you were telling me about you losing your job and your front tooth. From there I may actually begin to clean my house, feed the cats or in some cases, ever so gingerly begin to type a blog like this one about how I’m not paying attention to you.

If you’re talking to me in person and begin to go on too long I may do one of many things. If you’re my mother (who goes on and on and back around to telling the same thing over and over again like it’s on some strange looped recording) I may play the silent movie director and with my index finger pointed to the side and violently rotate it to make the “wrap it up” motion. Or I may point to a spot somewhere in the air and say, “Here’s you’re point” and then do my best mime searching in the dark for nothing and then say, “here’s me.” If it goes on way too long I’ll just say, “Sum it up.”

You may think that this is rude but in fact it’s not at all. I’m not saying I start this stuff the minute that you’re talking to me but if the story involves more than three people and is impossible to keep straight then rest assured I’m going to be wondering what I’m having for dinner and/or thinking about whether or not I should get a haircut or doing one or many of the things listed above.

The other side to this is that in life, in my job I have to be a multi-tasker so much like a Mom who manages to yell at a kid with her eyes while on the phone with her sister gushing over the new haircut she got, I can do many things at once. It reminds me of the song, “Woman” that Peggy Lee sang. “I can listen to a friend bitch and criticize her at the same time. I can watch the TV and make a drink with a twist of lime. I can squeeze into a pair of jeans that shouldn’t fit and look great. Shave, moisturize, deodorize, accessorize and show up fashionably late. Cause I’m a homo, H to the O-M-O!”

But when you go on and on and see me drifting please for God’s sake either change the subject or maybe just maybe take a long enough breath that I might be able to interject something into the supposed conversation we’re having. And make no mistake about it, if you don’t be ready because what part of me doing a thousand different things when I’m listening to you makes you not get that I’m not interested in what you have to say? – Don’t Get Me Started!

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From Your Email To God’s Inbox – Don’t Get Me Started!

Slang is something that continually changes yet some phrases (whether they be clichés or not) seem to remain intact. I don’t get it, who decides what stays (“Whatever” – and I wish it wouldn’t) and what goes (“Swell” – okay, so I still use this but I’m a forty-something gay male so I’m expected to keep phrases like this alive). Recently someone sent me an email that talked about that “great day when…” and I could only respond one way, from your email to God’s inbox – Don’t Get Me Started!

Now, do I think that I’m the one who invented this phrase? And that I’ll see a bunch of people using it and giving themselves credit? You bet your ass. You see I think that I’ve come up with all sorts of phrases that have made it into people’s vernacular and yet I rarely get credit. (Big sigh – Bitter? High chair for one?) I have a pal that I reconnected with after almost twenty years and he confided to me that he was still using some of my material from the early 80’s. I updated his material and told him as long as he was on his coast and I was close to the other one it was all good.

Another pal of mine tried to bring back the word, “Boss” – no, not in the way the kid at the In And Out Burger refers to me as he’s handing me my burger (and pisses me off no end – read that blog here http://hubpages.com/hub/Why-You-Should-Never-Call-Anyone-Boss ) but in a 1960’s, “that’s cool kind of way.” Now in this case I just think it’s forced and doesn’t quite work. Unless of course you’re very close friends with Bruce Springsteen.

No, I think in order to “coin a phrase” as they used to say it needs to come organically. Like when a friend of mine and I walked into another friend’s home to see the most God awful lamp every created, I said, “Dear God, that’s ugly squared.” And so it came to pass that when things are too too for me, they get “squared.” In fact I used it in a blog last week when talking about Jesus and Joseph Smith – they quickly became J squared. (Go ahead, I know you’re going to steal it – use it in good health – as my Jewish relatives always say about everything from new cars to a new sweater)

Unfortunately for us, it always seems that a lot of these phrases come from the younger generation (that isn’t all that funny to me on the whole). Let’s see, who can ever forget the whole, “Wasssup???” or perhaps the Randy Jackson “Dog” – none of them are as clever as a quick quip from the forties. One of my all time favorites is from the movie musical Forty-Second Street where Ginger Rogers is in a line of girls rehearsing the big show. The director is pleading with them to show more emotion, off-handedly (the best way to deliver a quip) she says, “Whaddya want me to do, bite my nails?” Or another film classic that has two women meeting on the street who you can tell from their posture that they don’t like each other immediately. One says sarcastically, “What a small world.” The other one says, “Positively stuffy!” (I’ll admit I’ve used this more than one when someone sets me up with a good, “What a small world.”)

But I guess the most important thing isn’t to get the credit but to give people a more colorful way of talking and interacting. Just as long as you all know that I started – from your email to God’s inbox – Don’t Get Me Started!

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I Want To Protest Proposition 8 Too But There Are So Many Stores And People To Boycott I’m Losing Track – Don’t Get Me Started!

When Proposition 8 in California passed I was as outraged as the next human being. (I specifically say “human being” instead of “gay” because at the core of it I honestly feel that this is a human issue and not one for the Christian right, Mormons or anyone else to change a constitution to state that it’s purpose is to “deny rights” when I thought I was living in a country that protected all men – women too, who were supposed to be created equal under the eyes of the law.) But in true gay fashion, we love a cause and my inbox is simply more filled than my dance card would be if I was going to a dance that still had dance cards with everyone I know (gay and straight) telling me who donated what to the Prop 8 cause and why I should not shop at this stores or support them. I want to protest Proposition 8 too but there are so many people to boycott I’m losing track – Don’t Get Me Started!

It’s easy when it’s just churches, we know these crazies oh too well so when they tell us we’re going to hell, that God didn’t create Adam and Steve (why anyone ever uses this I don’t know, if he was really gay, we all know that this supposed Steve would go by Steven), or that we’re the reason 9/11 happened it rolls off our back like water off a duck. But with this new brand of “putting the gays in their place” the players are not as easily spotted so that’s why everyone I know wants everyone they know and more to know who the haters are but unfortunately in our current flurry of email communication and our rush to get info out I have to say that the gays aren’t as organized as they usually are and that’s what’s really making us look bad. I mean, if we can’t get our boycott list organized how are we going to keep the Schmidt’s family members who aren’t speaking away from one another as we plan their wedding?

The first email I got seems to be the most complete list but really it’s just a list of which Mormons we’re supposed to boycott because these companies are owned by Mormons and we all know how they “tithe” to the church and build one hell of a pantry for Armageddon but I ask you, look at this list…

> STOP GIVING THESE COMPANIES YOUR MONEY!
> Kroger foods (Ralph's and Albertsons)
> NPS Pharmaceuticals
> American Express
> NuSkin
> Affiliated computer services
> Oil States International
> AES corp.
> Oakley
> Avista corp.
> Priceline.com
> Black and Decker
> Phelps Dodge Corp.
> Cadence Design
> Ryder Systems (Ryder trucks)
> Corvis
> Sky West Airlines
> Central Pacific Bank
> Swift Transportation
> 1-800-Contacts
> Cornerstone Realty Income Trust Inc.
> Cygnus Inc.
> Tropical Sportswear
> Diebold
> Williams Companies Inc.
> Dell Computer
> Zions Securities Corp
> Dionex
> K-BIG FM radio Los Angeles
> Downey Savings and Loan
> AgReserves lnc. (agriculture)
> EarthShell
> Sunrider Int'l.
> Franklin Covey
> Latham and Watkins
> Hillenbrand Industries
> Huntsman Chemical
> Headwaters Inc.
> Bain Capital
> Hollywood Entertainment (Hollywood video)
> Spectra
> Host Marriott (Marriott hotels and resorts)
> Jet Blue
> lomega
> Azul
> JP Realty
> Deloitte Touche
> Key Corp.
> Zions Securities Corp.
> Knight Transportation
> Bonneville comm.
> K-Swiss lnc.
> Telefonica Brasil
> La Quinta Properties (t-a Quinta hotels)
> Apx Alarm
> Micrel Semiconductor
> Micro General
> Merit Medical Systems
> Monaco Coach
> Microsemi Corp.
> Myriad Genetics
> Novell
> For further information including additional companies, names, titles
> and contact
> information:
> www.mormonstockindex.com
> www.famousmormons.net
> www.mormon.org/mormon/mormon410.html

The good news for me is that other than say, K-Swiss (I have one pair but I promise not to wear them anymore) I don’t know who most of these companies are so I think I’m good to go. However I did find it funny that next to “Ryder Systems” they needed to clarify that it was Ryder Trucks. I’m assuming this is because there are so many gay porn stars with the name Ryder and they didn’t want you to think you had to throw out your Ryder dildo system or something.

The thing is that I get it that we shouldn’t provide these people with more money so that they can fund their hate programs but at some point it gets a little like Jews who won’t buy a Mercedes because it was made by Germans. First of all, there were German Jews, second of all, the people running and profiting from Mercedes now weren’t the ones who were running the company during the Holocaust. Meanwhile, I’ve seen plenty of Jews riding in a Mercedes. And while I hate to say this, many gays are trapped by their sense of fashion or trend. I remember when the Jeep Company discontinued their advertising on Ellen Degeneres’ sitcom after her character “came out” (had they boycotted it because the show got less funny (which it did) then I would have understood but such was not the case). Meanwhile, the gay mags like The Advocate continued to take money for advertising Jeeps in their magazines complete with two waspy looking guys who had two golden retrievers and flannel shirts on, packing up for a weekend at their country home.

Our economy has enough problems right now and while I do understand that the quickest way to a hater’s heart is through their pocketbook, I think what we really need to do is get on our education bandwagon. Remember when AIDS started and the gay community led in the education about it? Do you know how many educators are gay in this country? Do you know how many gays teach people what to wear, how to do their hair, and so on and so on? The one thing that most of the religious gang rely on are uneducated people following like sheep. It’s just my opinion but I think where we can do the most good is educating people.

Did you know that civil unions do not give you all the same rights as marriage? Did you know that when I was with a company that gave my partner benefits that the money the company paid toward his benefits was considered “additional income” for me and I was taxed on it? Did you know that if two gays own a house together and one dies, the other must immediately pay inheritance tax on the deceased partner’s portion of the house or risk losing the house? There’s a lot even I don’t know but it seems to me that rather than boycott we should educate because  I want to protest Proposition 8 too but there are so many people to boycott I’m losing track – Don’t Get Me Started!

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If Today Is Your Birthday Change It! – Don’t Get Me Started!

I can’t stand the portion of horoscopes in newspapers that do the whole, “If today is your birthday.” It gets on my nerves frankly. And while I’ll admit that I think there is the possibility that people who are born around the same time in the year share some attributes it doesn’t mean you can sum someone up with three sentences and (in my case) a picture of a scorpion next to it. I write this because today IS my birthday and do you know who else’s birthday? Charles Manson. If today is your birthday, change it! – Don’t Get Me Started!

Who knows, maybe if old Charlie Manson and I sat down we’d find out that we have a lot in common. Maybe he can’t eat just a few thin mint Girl Scout cookies without going through the whole sleeve too. Or maybe he loses his patience with people who drift so slowly into a left hand turn lane (taking up two lanes in the process) that he wants to kill them. Oops, better not bring up the “M” word to Charlie and besides, when was the last time he was out driving? If he’s a true Scorpio he would lose his patience and I don’t think that would be a good thing for Charlie or me.

My birthday was spoiled at an early age. You see, my Mother treated our birthdays as if they were national holidays. There was never NOT a party. And the party always had matching paper tablecloth, plates, napkins and party hats. The biggie we all remember among my family (perhaps because there are so many pictures of it) is a monster themed one and I remember that the hats had the monsters head and the part that sat on your forehead was the teeth of the monster. Stunning. And as my brother and I grew older the “events” became more overproduced. For my brother’s thirtieth birthday we surprised him in Las Vegas. He had driven over from San Diego in a mobile home he and his friends had rented and there we sat in the lobby of his hotel waiting to surprise him. Oh it wasn’t just my parents. No it was me, my grandmother and two of my aunts (on my father’s side). As he walked into the hotel (red in the face from most likely drinking their way over from San Diego to Las Vegas) he was more than a bit stunned to find us all there. It’s difficult to follow an act like my mother when it comes to birthdays.

Let’s take a minute and talk about surprises on my birthday. My Mother has tried to throw roughly five or six surprise birthday parties for me throughout the years – none of which I managed to attend. The first one was in high school. A girl friend of mine had taken me to the Arizona State Fair to get me out of the house. My Mother assembled all of my friends and even had my friend’s band play. The girl I was with decided that we were having too good of a time at the fair and so she didn’t bring me home at the appropriate time. (Resist the “staying too long at the fair cliché) In fact, when I finally arrived home the band had stopped playing (a couple members had to get home as it was a school night) and there were only a handful of people left. They all took pictures of themselves lying around asleep on the sofas as they waited for me to arrive home just to prove to me that they had been there when I had not. The last surprise party (that should have been no surprise to my Mother that it wouldn’t work) was years ago when they lived in New Jersey and my mate and I were supposed to go down there for the weekend. Only my mate took ill with asthma and had to be hospitalized. As I called my Mother to let her know, I could hear the “surprisers” in the background. Oops. Needless to say I think I’ve finally gotten her to the point where she knows that no surprises are a good thing when it comes to my birthday.

The thing is that as time passes I discover that without the monster party hats, or getting the newest Lite Brite (yes, with the extra pegs so you can make Bugs Bunny) that it’s okay to have a no big party birthday. It’s okay to just spend some time with those you love and just having them near you is a true gift. (As sappy as that may sound…especially coming from me) That said if you were planning to get me that new Mercedes please email me immediately for the correct address so that they can deliver it to the right place. And should you discover that today is indeed your birthday too – please change it, I’m writing to have Charles Manson change his because in a world where we all tend to wear the same clothes, buy the same stuff to look like everyone else, I prefer to be Tigger. Because the wonderful thing about Tiggers is that I’m the only one! If today is your birthday, change it! – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Ain’t Religion Grand? – Don’t Get Me Started!

Well I knew it was only a matter of time before we saw someone throwing someone else under the proverbial bus. Who knew that it was going to be the Mormons? That’s right, the Mormons have come out to tell the world that they weren’t alone in their fight against Proposition 8 in California to ban gays from marrying, they were “asked” to get into the fight by the San Francisco’s Catholic Archbishop. Ain’t Religion Grand? – Don’t Get Me Started!

I read it on one of the sites that is a must for anyone, Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish. Here’s the link http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/11/the-mormon-cath.html I’d like to say that I’m surprised by this latest bit of news but in all honesty the one thing that I am certainly not is surprised.

You see, I have a real problem with organized religion anyway. I get that there needs to be a building to hold services in or to have your Sunday school in but it always seems to me that the more that people get involved in their actual “house of worship” the more strings become attached, petty infighting and anything but kindness for their fellow man enters into the picture. Jews are not exempt from this by the way. My Catholic partner always marvels at the fact that Jews have to pay to get tickets to go to the High Holy Day services each year. As I’ve tried to explain to him (and haven’t done a very good job) it’s because there isn’t room for all the Jews that have memberships to sit in shul at the same time for those particular days so seats go at a premium. Hell, when I was little growing up in Arizona, my synagogue would rent the Phoenix Symphony Hall each year to hold the services just so they could get everyone in to atone for their sins. But let’s face it, just because it’s what you grew up with or what you know, at the base of it all it does seem more than a bit odd that in any religion it seems the more you pay the more you’re pray is going to mean.

I think of myself as a highly spiritual person and religious but I don’t need a congregation to make me feel “connected.” I get all the good that they can do but for every good deed done it seems a little like the song from the musical Wicked – “No Good Deed Goes Unpunished.” And such is the example of what we’re seeing now as the Mormon Church got into bed with the Catholics and now they’re telling everyone at school that the sex wasn’t that great. You laugh (and I laugh too) but is it all that different than what goes on at a local high school? I think not!

I’m sure that the whole idea the Mormons have is that since they’ve been under such fire from the media and the gays that they want a little absolution from the world by letting everyone know that they weren’t in it alone but isn’t a little like being a tattle tale? I mean to now say that the Catholic Church made you do it (which I guess IS more original than “the devil made me do it”) would seem to me a little like when you told your parents you did something because your friend did it. My response to the Mormon Church is the same too – “If the Catholics jumped off a bridge would you do that too?” (Oh please by all means…commence the jumping!)

Believe me when I say that everyone knows that the Catholic Church (the richest in all the land) had to have been involved in the fight against Proposition 8 so unfortunately for some of us there is no real revelation here. But now that both churches have shown themselves off as they really are (the bitchy mean girls from high school) I would hope that some who give their money (or tithe as the Mormons say) to these churches will think again. Is stopping the gays from marrying more important than doing what J squared (Jesus and Joseph Smith) supposedly taught about love and kindness to your fellow man? And isn’t that exactly what we gays are doing? Showing our love of our fellow man? I know I am. Ain’t religion grand? – Don’t Get Me Started!

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If Spinach Is So Great For Me, Why Does It Get Stuck In My Teeth? – Don’t Get Me Started!

Growing up in a Jewish home every meal was a delightful color, beige (or shades there of…pot roast and potatoes an occasional cooked carrot that had lost most of its orange color and had gone to a deep rust). I’ve written about it before but the honest to God truth is that the vegetables we had with our nightly home cooked dinners (when we weren’t going out to a restaurant) consisted of French cut green beans, creamed corn and on occasion the infamous LeSueur canned peas. My guy likes to say that I didn’t know about green vegetables until I met him. In honesty, it’s not far from the truth. And so it began with broccoli and now I’m even up to spinach salads but the question I have is that if spinach is so great for me, why does it get stuck in my teeth? – Don’t Get Me Started!

I mean, if something is good for me then I don’t understand how it could be so socially detrimental. And let me just say it doesn’t stop with the spinach. That’s right, eat broccoli and you’re a half an hour away from gas of such epic proportions that it’s bound to make any date or social event into a story about you trying to subtly find a way to stick your ass out a window in order to not embarrass yourself. (Let’s face it there’s really no subtle way to be at an event and stick your ass out a window.) Asparagus will betray you too.  

So maybe my Jewish mother knew right after all? I don’t recall ever having bad gas after eating that T-bone steak my father grilled and the creamed corn. Health shmealth who needs it, more important to be popular, right?

The thing is that I adore spinach in any form now and I especially love me a spinach salad. The thing is that no matter when or how I eat one there’s always the dreaded piece or two between one or two of my teeth. And the completely insidious part about spinach is that it’s almost impossible to get it out of your teeth in one try. Do yourself a favor and go for the big gun by using dental floss and dig, dig, dig until you get it out of your teeth. If you’re at work take yourself to the restroom because there’s no subtle way to do this task. And don’t rely on the feel of your tongue to discover where all that spinach is taking root in your mouth, you need to get into that mirror, pull those lips back and really go tooth by tooth.

Now most of you don’t care about any of what you’ve just read as much as you’re dying to know if I’ve ever had an embarrassing spinach moment. Well yes, of course I have had exactly that my friends. It was at a cocktail party where I knew next to no one and I was pouring it on with all the overly gay excited energy that usually turns people off or makes you the true life of the party. How I bobbed and weaved among the party-goers with people saying things like, “Can we do lunch at some point? You’re just so funny.” Yes, I felt popular squared. After martinis and many appetizers (that were passed) I went to the restroom. My eyes were a little bleary but after looking through the medicine cabinet of the person who was throwing the party I looked into the mirror to ensure the hair was in perfect place only to find that the first appetizer I ate when the evening began (a spinach and cheese on a crostini). That’s right they thought I was funny all right. (Funny like Lucy Ricardo trying to get rid of the cheese on the train in Europe.) So use this as a cautionary tale and don’t you have to wonder if spinach is so great for me, why does it get stuck in my teeth? – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Meeting For Anonymous Sex? If You’re a Jew You’ll Bring Cake! – Don’t Get Me Started!

At the risk of losing my standing as the only gay man to assist straightees in understanding the gay lifestyle (no, I was not being serious) sometimes you just have to be honest, no matter what the cost. I can finally admit it to all of you. I have never had anonymous sex. (Take a moment if you need it) That’s right, never in a bar, a bar’s backroom, a bar’s bathroom or behind a bar in the alley. (Wow, suddenly bars seem much more interesting…note to self, go to bars more often) And as technology enabled the world to find a lot more people by trolling online I never joined the Craig’s List/chatroom connection – largely due to the fact that I was all ready with the man of my dreams and in a committed gay monogamous relationship. However, a relative was recently telling me about another one of our relative’s recent sexual encounters and I was doubled over. Doubled over trying to catch my breath as I found out that if you’re meeting for anonymous sex? If you’re Jewish you’ll bring a cake! – Don’t Get Me Started!

That’s right in one of the funniest things I’ve ever heard I found out that a relative had decided to explore the options of finding a sexual mate online. And boy did he ever find it apparently. Now as I said, I have no real idea how this works and if someone was holding a gun to my head forcing me to show them how the whole world of gay sex online works I would be dead with a bullet in my head on the floor in moments. So apparently he meets someone online and they begin the dance of the chatting and then texting. After moments I guess it moves forward to the actual phone call of “here’s where I live get over here in the next ten minutes and let’s have sex” And because most in my life are overachievers like me, apparently it wasn’t just one man, it was a couple of men. I guess before my relative hung up with his hopefully hunky and hung sex mates, he asked the only question that would absolutely identify him not only as a gay man but as a Jew. “Should I bring cake?” (We never go anywhere empty handed.)

I think (from what they tell me) the things that make the anonymous sex thing so exciting are that you don’t know the people, don’t know what to expect and if it’s bad you never have to see them again. But what this relative also found out was that it wasn’t very rewarding or really great when you’re just “doin’ it and not doin’ it with someone you know and/or care about.” But enough about deep thoughts and back to the fun, right?

Before he arrived at the house of his soon to be “luvahs”, he programmed his cell phone with 911 as the first number and put the phone in his pocket, making sure to have his hand in his pocket as he went in with his finger placed firmly on the pre-programmed button. (All ready this seems like way too much work to me) Next he discovered that there was one man who was so short that he seemed four inches away from being an official “little person.” Now I chose not to hear about the actual encounter but I guess he ended up only have sex with the short one. Afterwards they ordered a pizza and chatted. So I guess, in a way, this whole anonymous sex thing can sometimes end up like an actual date in reverse. While they were enjoying the pizza, he found out that the normal sized mate was Jewish too. Soon after the full sized Jew left to go into the other room. The small one explained that his mate was in the other room talking to the next anonymous sex mate and invited him to stay for round two. My relative chose to leave.

I’m trying desperately not to be judgmental but every part of me is sort of grossed out by the whole chatting to texting to eating pizza in the kitchen of someone you don’t know with a little person you’ve just boffed (or who has just boffed you). Maybe I’m crazy but the whole scenario doesn’t get me hot…at all. However, if I was going to go this route, no doubt in my mind if you’re meeting for anonymous sex? If you’re Jewish you’ll bring a cake! – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Gays, Don’t Let’s Ask For The Moon. We Have The Stars – Don’t Get Me Started!

Just like every other American I watched the election results come in and as I was watching us move forward with great hope by electing Barack Obama I was watching on my laptop to see that gays would be barred from marriage in Arizona, California and Florida and barred from adopting children in Arkansas. It was odd seeing so many of the “ballot measures” in this election having to do with us gays. Of course I was saddened for my friends who had just recently been married in California but as I re-watched President Elect Obama’s speech and heard us gays included in his remarks I couldn’t help but think of that dialogue spoken by Bette Davis at the end of the movie Now Voyager, Gays, “Don’t let’s ask for the moon. We have the stars.” – Don’t Get Me Started!

Now before my gay caballeros go off on me, let me explain. We all know that the real issue here is over the word, “marriage” – as my brother eloquently explained to me on the phone last week (and I’m sure I won’t do it justice as he’s much smarter than me (or is it I?) and used much bigger words) “marriage” is a religious term and it’s not the “marriage” that the government recognizes but the marriage contract. Basically, we’re back to the real argument that I’ve written about forever which is that it’s not about the actual union for most it’s about that pesky little word, “marriage.” And for my money (no, I’m not speaking for all gays) if the whole civil union thing would give us gay couples all the rights of our heterosexual counterparts then I’d be at the courthouse tomorrow. But what people don’t realize is that the whole civil union thing does not afford us most of the rights afforded our straight counterparts. (Watch my Vblog about the word “marriage” here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1f3_eBjDwGc )

Let’s face it we as a nation are faced with many challenges today. And most of us have precious little patience when it comes to getting all of those challenges fixed. We want to pop our economic and social problems into a big microwave and have it come out hot in sixty seconds. What we need to realize is that (much like people who cook in microwave ovens know) it always tastes better when you take the time and effort and let it cook in the oven. No matter how many chemicals you put in it, there’s no substitute for a real home cooked meal. It takes time, knowledge and love. And for us gays, we’re going to have to learn the meaning of the word “patience.” (At least we have a theme song all ready thanks to the movie musical score of Dreamgirls, right?)

Look, I want to have all the rights that anyone else has but look how long it’s taken America to continually chip away at the whole racism issue (which by the way is far from over even though many think, “problem solved” just because there’s going to be a black man in the White House).  

Maybe I’m just a cockeyed optimist (See the musical “South Pacific” for reference information) but I believe in my lifetime we’ll see our rights given to us. We just need to continue to chip away at all the hate and ignorance without becoming hateful and ignorant ourselves. I think about gay men throughout history who had to hide their entire lives (and the ones who are living in fear still today, doing much the same thing) and then I think about me being able to tell my parents and the world that I was in love with another man (a six foot black man, at that) and that we’ve been able to build an honest and loving life together for the past twenty years. He’s away on business but we were on the phone last night watching Obama’s acceptance speech together, both of us full of emotion as we listened to the television broadcast through each other’s phone in an odd kind of stereo. My guy moved by the fact that in his lifetime he saw himself not being allowed to drink out of the same water fountains as white people and was now seeing a black man win the presidency and me getting caught up in the moment that we finally had a true statesman in the White House who would use his intelligence to break down walls of fear and hate not just in America but across the globe.

Am I sad about the ballot measures that lost, absolutely. But it hasn’t diminished my hope or my sense of recognition for what we have achieved with this election. So I ask my gay compatriots to stop for a moment and be thankful for what we did get last night. Gays, let’s don’t ask for the moon. We have the stars. – Don’t Get Me Started!

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A Gay Out Of His Element…At A Tire Store – Don’t Get Me Started!

When I bought the Mini Cooper, one of the big selling points to me was the fact that the car came with “Run Flat Tires.” These amazing tires are supposedly infused with the most modern and amazing of technologies that allow you to run 100 miles at 50 miles an hour on a flat tire. As someone who has never changed a tire in his life (if God had intended me to change a tire he wouldn’t have created the automotive club that comes with my American Express card). And although I cringe at being a stereotype, there was no doubt when I needed tires that I was a gay out of his element…at a tire store – Don’t Get Me Started!

The twenty something kid at the counter with the name “Matt” on his manager name tag was right out of a text book of “The New Salesman” (a book I just made up), he was personable, nice and had that whole, “Don’t worry, I’m going to do whatever I can to make you happy.” (Which incidentally made the price go up at least 20% I’m sure.) After a walk around my car and a lot of nodding, we went back into the store part of the tire store where he delivered the bad news. $1300.00 for four tires was the final price. I was of course tempted to ask about the supposed “special” that was on the board with the removable letters outside that showed “Buy four tires and get 20% off*” but before I could ask about it, Matt was on it and explained that the * was for “most” tires which as I’ve learned about so many things in my life, no matter what the special, no matter how cheap something is supposedly going to be, I always find myself in the *category which is the full and over priced category. As I tried to get over the price Matt began feverishly calling every three of his fellow stores in search of my tires. He finally found a place and they were going to deliver them in the afternoon. He tried his best to “upsell” me with a tire balance plan for the rest of my life and a million other things but I managed to hold my ground and just get the tires. The car was ready by the end of the day and I was assured with all the warranties, etc. I had also somehow agreed to that if the tires so much as looked funny I could have them replaced free of charge. So all in all this experience was not as horrible as I had expected.

Upon picking up the car I was amazed that what my father had always told me was true. Cars really do need new tires after four years and it indeed makes your car drive better and get better gas mileage. The only problem was every time I went over 50 miles an hour the car began to shake with such precision that it could rival the hips on the Hawaiian animatronic dolls in the It’s A Small World ride. So back to the shop the car went and Matt was delighted to go ahead and sell me the balance and rotation service for the next three years of my car. Another $150.00 but the car was driving better…that is until I got to 60 miles an hour but after awhile I just learned to live with it. Sure, I knew it was probably dangerous but I just couldn’t go back to that shop again and listen to Matt tell me how much my business meant to him and how he was concerned about my happiness as a customer above all else.

This was all five months ago and I’m not sure if it was my imagination but the shimmy at 60 mph seemed to get better throughout the five months. A guy I work with was having his car detailed in the parking lot of our office and he asked if I wanted the guy to do mine as well. And so it came to pass that I paid the $30 to have someone hose down my car in the office parking lot. When it was done the detailer pointed out to me that there was an enormous nail sticking out of the side of the tire. And so I dug through my glove compartment and found all the paperwork. I called Matt at the tire store, refreshed his memory as to who I was and he said he would call me back when he had located the tire. I waited for a week and a half. Remember how he found the tire from three calls last time when I was spending $1300? Well, such was apparently not the case now that the tire was being replaced for “free.” What a difference five months make. I explained to him that I would want to “wait for the car” and that the tires would need to be balanced as there was a shimmy when the car hit sixty.

When I went at the scheduled time to get the tire fixed, Matt was not there but there was someone who knew all about me before I walked in, immediately he began the “mechanic speak” – you know they start throwing out sizes and weights of tires, valves, catalytic cataclysmic cogs or whatever the hell it is. I got so confused that I forgot what tire had the nail! As he was shouting mechanic terms to me and walking into the garage proper I shouted after him about the shimmy at 60. He was like, “Well of course with a nail in your tire that can happen.” He kept walking. I shouted louder, “No, the shimmy came before the nail.” He was gone. It was a Sunday morning and there I sat in the dirty waiting area with some preacher on the television telling me Jesus wanted to be my friend and that if I didn’t take his friendship that I was going to rot in hell.

Finally they asked me to go to the counter and “checkout” where I learned that much like everything in life, nothing is really free. It was something like $40 for the service labor but the tire was indeed free. As he was checking me out he muttered something about the tires being “off by 2 milliliters” or something and that would of course make the shimmy happen.

The good news is that the car is driving great. Do I feel as though I have any idea what they did or whether or not it will last, certainly not. Unfortunately, I just feel like a gay stereotype a gay out of his element…at a tire store – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Why I’m Disgusted With Google’s Adsense! – Don’t Get Me Started!

I’ve read all the blogs people write about buying a new house from the payments that they get from adding Adsense ads to their sites, blogs, etc. but I have never had that experience. In the two years that I have been writing my blog, I have received one check for $100 and I am scheduled to receive the next one next month which is very close to the $100 cut off point as well. Be that as it may, it’s a good easy source of having constant revolving content ads on your site without doing too much and hey, if you get paid all the better, right? That is until I went on my site today to find it covered in ads for a Proposition on the California ballot that I’m completely opposed to with every fiber of my being. That’s why I’m disgusted with Google’s Adsense! – Don’t Get Me Started!

I get that Adsense can do whatever they like and I also realize that if it goes off content from my blog then indeed it would have caught onto the fact that I have written a couple of times about Proposition 8, the proposition that would legally make same sex marriages illegal. That’s right I have written to say that in fact no one should be voting “YES” for this (no matter how much money the Mormons and Christian Right throw at it) and yet if you were to go to my site (well, some of you are here as it is) then you would see my site covered with white male/female and black male/female couples who advocate Proposition 8 passing. ARGHHH!

I guess that I could pull all of the Adsense ads off until after today or I could write to Adsense (if you can find a way to contact them you’re smarter than me because like most websites that only give the appearance of giving help, they send you to forums or “most asked questions” but good luck actually trying to talk or email someone) but in a way I hope that people who visit my site understand just how against this proposition I am and that they feel good about clicking and putting money in “a gay’s” pocket just for clicking on these stupid ads.

That’s right, just like the Right I want to make my money too. I want to take them for everything they’re worth frankly. From allowing priests to molest children and covering it up to the Mormons who excommunicate you if you have any sense at all in your head I want their billions and billions of dollars to go to sites and people like me. Believe me when I say that you will not change the mind of any of my readers you haters but you will be hopefully helping to fund me buying another bottle of lube to have gay sex! So thanks suckers (and no, I don’t mean the people who have actually sucked on me at one time or another).

Suddenly in the midst of my rage it occurs to me, what if the Adsense people have the same idea that I have? By putting these ads on gay sites they will actually make some money for “the gays” all the while allowing their advertisers to think that they are just spreading their word like the STDs spread by the repressed supposedly religious men who marry women for Jesus but sleep with men for their soul. (Yes, that last sentence was intended to piss you off, why should I be angry alone?)

According to the Adsense bylaws you can’t encourage people to click ads on your site nor can you click yourself so this is by no means a way of asking people to click on these ads. In fact, I would probably feel better buying lube without the money from the people who run these types of ads. I think it probably would make them feel better too. And that’s why I’m disgusted with Google’s Adsense! – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Election Day Is Here But Where Will All The Hate Go? – Don’t Get Me Started!

Well kids, it’s finally here that day that we’ve all been gearing up for for what seems like the past four years. Election Day. I wonder if the people will stand in the long lines. I wonder why there are such long lines when we’re supposedly one of the most evolved countries in the world yet we can’t seem to get our election process down to a science that gives us true accuracy. I wonder if all the hours and hours of television we’ve all watched to help us decide in our own mind who should win if it really did help us to find the right candidate to become our next President. And more than anything, now that Election Day is here; where will all the hate go? – Don’t Get Me Started!

I’ve talked about it before, I know a little bit about hate. I’ve been hated because I was Jewish, because I was gay and all by people who didn’t really know me at all. I wonder if it’s easier to hate someone when you don’t know them. I think it is easier.  

When you looked at some of these political rallies and saw people screaming the most hateful things about the different candidates you just can’t help but wonder what will happen when their party doesn’t win. I don’t think there will be assassinations or looting in the streets but someone somewhere will feel this hate. You see, hate needs an escape. It can’t sit within someone without manifesting in some manner. Maybe it will come out at work when you blow up at a co-worker for an offense that you would have hardly noticed before. Maybe it will come out at your spouse, your children, your parents or your pet but why isn’t someone talking about or helping us to realize and deal with our anger? Where is Dr. Phil when we need him? Putting some newlyweds in a house with cameras? I dare say this seems more important.

I’m reminded of the song, “If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands…if you’re angry and you know it, stomp your feet.” We should all be stomping our feet to try and just get rid of some of this stress, don’t you think?

And it goes deeper than just the presidential election. If you read all the hate being spewed at gays for their commitment to one another in the form of marriage in California or even hear the gays rip apart the Christian Right that condemns them, it’s absolutely exhausting. I don’t know how people manage to continue hating so much without being completely exhausted. There was an expression that was used in old movies where they would say about a woman who had gotten to that stage of complete exhaustion, “She’s taken to her bed.” There are plenty of times I feel as though I would like to take to my bed but I have a job to do. That job is to try to make you laugh, to share with you stories of things that you can’t even imagine happening to you that have happened to me and how I managed to find the humor in it.

I like laughing much more than I hate hating. So whatever the outcome is with the election I hope that we find a way to heal instead of hate, laugh instead of lash out at one another and that somewhere someone can explain to me just why I get called, “Ma’am” so damn much!

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Proposition H8TE in California Casts Gays As The Haters – Don’t Get Me Started!

As a gay man I have received more than my fair share of emails and letters in the mail asking me to assist in California Human Rights Campaigners to get people to vote “NO” on Proposition 8 on Tuesday. Thanks to our political system it’s sometimes difficult to understand if voting “no” indeed means “no” or if it means yes and I’m sorry to say that some of the literature I received confused me all the more. So allow me to take a gay(lay)man’s approach to let you know that voting “NO” means that you feel that marriage should not only be given to only one man and one woman. In other words, a “NO” vote means that you say “YES” to allowing gays to have the same marriage rights as their heterosexual counterparts. I’m a believer in knowledge being power and so I decided to do some poking around at the opposition’s websites and what I discovered was that Proposition H8TE in California casts gays as the haters – Don’t Get Me Started!

I’m not without sense. I understand that there are those who become some impassioned by their opinions that in their zeal to convert and convince others that they end up becoming close to what they hated in the first place. I am not someone who lives his life without passion and I understand that I can become the same way too when I really believe in something but I’m not so passionate as to not realize that when you begin to really hate the opposition, you give up more of your own personal power and lessen your ability to think very clearly.

I’ve written before that for me and my guy who have been in a monogamous relationship for the past twenty years that we don’t have the desire to be married in an actual ceremony with shoes and rice but that we feel that our union should more than entitle us to hospital visits, tax breaks and the thousands of other advantages that married couples are afforded in America. (Amazing that you can be married for two minutes and be afforded all these rights if you’re a man and woman and then get divorced the next day but those of us gays in truly committed relationships somehow don’t deserve the same rights.) However I began to think about the gay friends of mine who were recently married in California. These couples (some of who have been together for years and years) have so much love in their hearts that I would hate to see any “man put asunder” as the classic ceremony states. I know that some people believe that God wrote the bible but I tend to believe it was man. I’ve heard people tell me that the men who wrote the bible were “inspired” to write it but you can’t tell me that I wasn’t inspired when I fell in love with the man I’ve spent two decades with or that God doesn’t look down on us with our love and care of one another, family, taking in stray cats and doesn’t smile or shed his grace on us. I’m not saying we’re saints but we’re not the sexed up sinners that some would have you believe either.

When I went to a site that was urging people to vote “YES” on Proposition 8 the first pop-up I encountered was one asking for donations. I could see the top of the site had a lovely looking white family of a mother, father, a boy and a girl. After finding a way to get past the donation pop-up, another pop-up appeared asking me to volunteer my time. Finally I made it to the site. There were several videos on the site but the one I chose was of a couple from Massachusetts who told of their story of their second grader being read a book where two princes fall in love and become two kings. (I was just as shocked as you that they didn’t end up as two queens but that’s a story for another day I suppose) These parents went on to tell their story of how they were dismayed at their son coming home re-telling them the story of the book being read in class, of the teacher they emailed telling them that there was nothing she could do as it was not part of the curriculum but they were forced to read it (not sure how that worked) and their eventual lawsuit to get these materials banned for the sake of their children. All of this we’ve basically heard before but what got me was at the end of the “mock interview” where they were telling about how they were treated horribly by gay people for them taking a stand on what they felt were their parental rights. They were called names and told they were hated by the gays. Now one could make the argument that we gays have been called enough names and hated long enough that they deserved to see how the other humans on the planet feel but that would be once again propagating the same kind of hate and while some may think “an eye for an eye” I am not one of the people who believe “a hate for a hate.”

Look, I don’t doubt that these parents got some heat from homosexual groups and I don’t condone it but I also don’t condone the right wing Christian movement (and largely Mormon movement) that wants you to believe that letting gays get married would be the end of the world. It is with this that for the first time I want to share a personal story with you.

It was years ago and my mate was very ill. He couldn’t breathe and we thought that it was just bronchitis or something. Finally I insisted that we go to an urgent care facility. By the time we got there he could barely breathe and so I went in and asked for a wheel chair so that he wouldn’t have to walk in the cold into the unit when he couldn’t breathe in the first place. The nurse looked at me with a knowing and judgmental look and asked, “Oh, is it pneumonia?” She and I both knew what she meant, she meant, “Is it AIDS related pneumonia?” Knowing that I needed this woman to take care of the most important person in my life, I bit my tongue and said, “No, it’s bronchitis.” She gave me the wheel chair and checked that her rubber gloves were on tight.

What ensued was a nightmare. They wheeled him in and I was left in the waiting room. Only after an hour or more of waiting did I get the good news which was that the doctor determined that it was exercise induced asthma but he had so much infection in his lungs from not being treated earlier that when he blew in the tube to see his lung capacity he was blowing a 0 – that’s right, the doctor informed him that had he not been so muscular and literally forcing air through his lungs he wouldn’t be breathing at all. I also learned that they were admitting him to the hospital where they insisted on taking him by ambulance as his breathing was still tentative at best. No one ever asked me if I wanted to ride in the ambulance with him. Even though he was still in what would seem almost critical condition, I was merely told the above by my guy when he asked that they allow me into his room. Before I knew it they were taking him to the ambulance. (Thank God he remained conscious or I am convinced I would never have known that he was even transferred)

Off to the hospital I went, calling his parents and letting them know what was going on. They met us at the hospital and because his mother had been a nurse and knew most of the staff I was never left outside waiting again I’m pleased to say. But what would happen now that we don’t live where his parents are or where they “know” people? It frightens me. And although I want to be an understanding person I can’t understand why people would want anyone to be barred from being with their loved ones in health threatening times. I’ve been there, I know. And so I ask you to think about this on Tuesday when you vote in California and around America, not about the heavens opening and swallowing the world whole but us humans here on earth who love one another and deserve the right to share the rights our heterosexual counterparts enjoy, most without giving it a second thought. Think twice, vote “NO” on Proposition H8TE.

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How To Get Rid Of The Halloween Candy – Don’t Get Me Started!

Never mind for a moment just how incredibly bitter I am that I had not one (that’s right kids, not one kid, pre-teen, teen or adult) come to my door last night to trick or treat me. However, whether you had one or one thousand kids last night most likely you’ve found yourself in the same position that I’m in. Stuck with a ton of candy and fighting your inner demons all at the same time. If you’re Jewish or Catholic (raised on guilt), survived a potato famine or were ever told that there was a kid somewhere around the globe in a country you couldn’t find on a map who was starving and would only survive if you ate your Le Sueur Peas then right about now you’re staring at that bowl of candy and there are beads of sweat starting to appear on your upper lip as your do your best to resist. Allow me to help, how to get rid of the Halloween Candy – Don’t Get Me Started!

I too am forced to be staring into a very large bowl with every type of candy I’ve ever wanted to eat and yet at all other times in the year manage to avoid. I bought the mother lode of a bag of candy. It has Reece’s Peanut Butter Cups, Kit Kats, Hershey Bars, Whoppers and in case all that wasn’t enough I also bought a bag filled with small bags of M&Ms. ARGHHHHH! Stupidity, thy name is Scott. So far today I’ve managed to avoid the chocolate devil but every so often it does sound as if they’re singing show tunes to me that sound remarkably like “Food” from Oliver!

And so I sat, I sat and thought a lot about what to do with this candy. And if you’re me, you’re always looking at an angle to make people like you and so it finally came to me. Give it away. I know, right now you’re thinking to yourself, “Wow, amazing advice Scott. Way to go…NOT!” But the piece you’re missing is how to make it so fabulous that people won’t be able to resist the candy or you. It’s not about the candy, it’s not about giving it away now that you’re in November, it’s all about style. Which now brings you back to me, Scott…that’s right, the Scott that Some Like It – time to go to your main Jewish gay.

As of today, what is on sale at almost every store in the store universe? That’s right, Halloween merchandise. This is the start of your strategy. Go to the store (it could be Wal-Mart or Hallmark or even Macy’s) buy some gift bags. Halloween gift bags. That’s right covered in pumpkins or if you can’t find those just go for plain black and add some orange tissue paper. Bring these items home and insert candy. Voila, you now have a perfect after-Halloween Halloween treat bag. But now that you’ve created the perfect Halloween after-Halloween bag, what do you do with it?

You pawn it off on someone who can’t tell you they find it tacky or refuse it. In short your team at Starbucks. That’s right. You see those baristas have to smile, nod and screw up your difficult coffee drink but what they can’t do is refuse you showing up like Bree from Desperate Housewives or the Welcome Wagon with a bag filled with candy and done up for them. And guess what? Even if they hate it and don’t want it themselves, they have something you don’t have in your own home…a counter that is passed by millions everyday (unless you’re a prostitute who works at home or Rachel Ray) where they can place it and get rid of it. Now true, I haven’t taken it to my Starbucks gang yet but should they refuse there’s always the dry cleaners, the bank or a dozen other places that would allow you to rid yourself of the candy that was created by Satan.

Right about now you’re wondering why I don’t have my own show like Martha Stewart or at the very least a column in a local paper. I’m wondering the same thing too. The important thing to remember is that when the rest of the world and the people in your world are trying to bother you with such things as who to vote for in an election or keeping your home from foreclosure, I’ll always be here helping you with the things that really matter. Like how to get rid of the Halloween candy – Don’t Get Me Started!

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