It’s Time To Get CreGAYtive Again! – Don’t Get Me Started!

This goes out to all of my fellow gays in the world. With the current economic situation sucking the life out of everyone faster than a hustler in an alley behind a gay bar, it’s time for us gays to once again shine our brightest and get the world out of this mess. Who were the ones who moved into slums and made the property values go up faster than Chris Brown’s hand to Rhihanna’s face? The gays, that’s who and it’s time we did it again. It’s time to get creGAYtive again! – Don’t Get Me Started!

Thanks to the religious right who has run this country (run it into the ground) for years, blaming us gays for everything from 9/11 to Britney Spears (okay, well we had a lot to do with the latter disaster) we’ve allowed ourselves to sit back and be victims. Oh, we want gay marriage and we want gay adoption and we want, we want, we want but the straightees won’t let us have it so we bitch and moan (I’m no exception here) but we do little to grab the situation by the balls (something we know a lot about incidentally) and make shit start to happen.

Perhaps it’s just time to be less polite and do what is right? You know how they always say it’s better to ask forgiveness than ask permission? Well I’ll leave all of that to the people who visit confessionals but what I’m thinking is that maybe just maybe we need to just get creative and use our fabulous creativity to get what we want and deserve. Here’s an example, we gays are perceptive and can usually figure out a situation rather quickly. When my best friend (yes, a woman), when her husband was dying in the hospital and I flew into town to be with her, as I was racing to the ICU I saw in an instant that there was a keypad that needed a code to let you into the ICU. There was a nurse “guarding” the entrance. I walked up to her and told her that I was the brother of the man dying and needed the code. Within seconds I was in the ICU (and knew the code for future use). Some will say I shouldn’t have gotten in. Some may say that if I had said I was his lover I wouldn’t have gotten in but the point is that I got in. So, in the hospital situation if you can’t find a gay nurse (should not be difficult) then use that gay sensibility and finesse to get where you need to go.

In January, eleven members of our (yes, it’s America and like it or not it includes us gays) eleven members of OUR armed forces were drummed out due to the fact that they are gay. I know that the White House has a lot on its mind but come on do they really need a committee to see if they need a commission to do a study to determine the impact on repealing the whole “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy? Well, apparently they do so in the meantime, let the straightees go to war (after all in most cases the wars were all started by straightees who decided to use someone else’s ass to cash the check the leader wrote with their mouth declaring war). Although I have to say that it would seem to me it would take mere minutes to repeal this stupid law and allow our forces the benefit of the many intelligent and admirable gay soldiers who have and are serving currently. But such is not the case according to our lawmakers who tell us to once again put on our boas and sit on the sidelines waiting for a chance to be put into the game. We can’t win this one right now but with Obama in the White House we have a better chance and thanks to our many gay rights organizations, they’re on it boys and girls.

So while we wait for all of our rights to come through, we’re going to have to be a little creGaytive in the meantime. And while we’re on the subject I think it’s also time for some of us gays to get back to doing what we do best. Instead of every gay blog covering every minute of every piece of gay legislation, I think we need some frivolous fabulousness as well. I think we’ve all gotten so serious about the world’s situation that we’ve lost our senses of humor. Losing one’s sense of humor is never a good thing. We need to not only channel our Martin Luther King, Jr. sensibilities but also our Paul Lynde sensibilities. I’m not one of those gays afraid to admit that I love me some show tunes and an episode of Toddlers and Tiaras on TLC and guess what? I’m just as relevant and needed as the Human Rights Campaign. I think somewhere we’ve lost a little of our gayness thanks to trying to show everyone we seem so “normal” that we deserved rights like every other American. I’m not saying I’ll be on a Gay Pride float in heels and wig anytime soon but I do think I (like many other gays) I need to get a little lighter in my loafers again for our sakes. All activism and no flounce makes Scott (and other gays) a dull boy. It’s time to get creGAYtive again! – Don’t Get Me Started!

Knowing – A Movie Review Of Sorts – Don’t Get Me Started!

Before I even begin I need to add a disclaimer, if you haven’t seen the movie, “Knowing” and think you might, don’t read this blog. If you loved the movie, “Knowing” you probably don’t want to read this blog. If in fact you wrote, were in, produced or had anything to do with “Knowing” read this blog immediately. Knowing – a movie review of sorts – Don’t Get Me Started!

Knowing is the latest big budget sci-fi pic starring Nicholas Cage. It’s in theaters now and was number one at the box office the weekend that it opened which now that I’ve seen it can only mean that nothing else opened the weekend that this movie opened.

I didn’t know anything about the movie but the start of it was promising, moody odd girl, time capsule at her school to be opened fifty years later. I was digging it. Great premise but as soon as it got to modern days there seemed to be more problems with the movie than just a piece of paper that had been in a time capsule for fifty years. What I discovered as the movie progressed is that I don’t think I’m a fan of Nicholas Cage, he’s very “acty” and I never really believe anything he does. I guess that’s why the films I remember liking him in are things like “Raising Arizona” or “Moonstruck” where his character is a bit over the top (like his acting). As far as this movie goes, he continues on with his overly made up appearance, fake hair and worrisome looks into the camera that ranged from A to B. And while some could blame the movie’s failings on Nicholas Cage, he’s not in this alone (which you can also tell by the credits at the end of the movie which list two assistants, a trainer and a chef all for only Mr. Cage).

What boggles my mind about these types of movies is how they get made in the first place. I think they had a really good premise but had no idea how to script it or create anything besides the first act of the film. So who “green lights” these things and do they go to them and say, “Hey, this movie is sucking?” or do they even read the script once they have a star and the money has been furnished to create it? Does the movie have some amazing special effects? Sure but not enough of them to make the movie. Not to mention which most people can create special effects on their Mac computers at this point with the way technology has progressed so you’re going to have to go a little further than digitally falling planes and trains.

When the double sided list of numbers from the girl from the fifties ends up in the hands of a boy currently at the school whose father (Cage) happens to be a professor at MIT, Cage sees more than randomness in the numbers. Although Cage’s character is basically an alcoholic who lost his wife a year before he seems to be in great shape (again thank the credited Trainer To Mr. Cage, I suppose) and even manages to almost outrun a would-be fugitive at one point. This is a minor plot point but I think just shows that there wasn’t a great deal of thought about too much in this movie when it comes to details large or small. When it becomes apparent that the numbers are tragedies from recent times somehow prophesized by the girl from the fifties Cage springs into action determined to be at the next event on the list and even try to stop it.

All of the above would be fine but then as quickly as the premise is given to you, the movie takes a turn that seems as though its writers and director were just looking for easy answers because they didn’t have any worthy of the original concept of the film.  You can almost see them sitting around a table saying to one another, “I don’t know, we just sold it to the studio so how are we going to make this all plausible?”

Writer number two, “Well, unless the girl is a modern day Nostradamus the only other way she could have known is if someone told her and we all know the only ones who would know about future stuff in movies are aliens.”

Writer number one: “Oooh, aliens, perfect. I mean, we know what they look like and they always know everything.”

Writer number three: “Okay people, what about these aliens? It gives us a great effect with a spaceship and everything but what else should we do with them?”

Writer one: “That’s the beauty of aliens, they don’t have to speak, you don’t have to explain what they do, they’re aliens for Chrissakes!”

Writer three: “Okay, so the aliens come and they want the boy right? What about the woman from the fifties? Can she have a granddaughter that they want too?”

Writer one: “Perfect, that just gave me the end of the movie. Everyone dies except the two kids who get saved by the aliens and become the next Adam and Eve.”

Writer three: “Perfect but let’s make sure that the costumer puts the two kids in linen when they go to start the new world, I remember that’s how they always looked on Star Trek and in every other movie when they go to start a new world, linen.”

Honestly between the aliens and the idea that everyone dies this seems to scream an idea which has no ending so they took the easy way out. Why am I the one who sees this and not the people creating it? I don’t credit myself with being all that smart and these people do it all the time for a living. Shouldn’t they have caught this one? Someone? Anyone? Even Mr. Cage? If he wasn’t so busy with his two assistants, chef, trainer, hairmaker/dresser and make up person perhaps he could have said something to the powers that be but he didn’t, no one did. So you spent $10.50 and walk out of yet another disappointing movie wondering if it would be so bad if everything just went straight to cable? (Let me answer that, yes it would be bad.)

Look, I love movies. I love going to the theatre and the big screen and even the greasy popcorn for six million dollars but I think it’s time we start getting a little bit more, especially when you consider how much it costs to make a movie and see one. What I know is that I’m going to be more careful about what I go to see and what I wait to see on cable. Knowing? Why didn’t anyone know that this movie didn’t have a second or third act? Knowing – a movie review of sorts – Don’t Get Me Started!

Legislation Is Great But Adam Lambert On American Idol Just May Be Able To Help Us More – Don’t Get Me Started!

Any forty-something (and forty-something plus) will tell you that when you look at the recent history of our country and when I say recent I mean 1950’s to today, you begin to understand that while lawmakers can make it illegal for someone to discriminate it’s often someone who isn’t a politician who makes the bigger impact on the daily lives of the minority group seeking acceptance with the majority. If you look at the struggles of the black community (many which continue today) you would see that it wasn’t the minute that they got rid of water fountains for “colored people” that things changed. It was major sports teams hiring black athletes, it was Diahann Carroll in a television series titled, “Julia” as the first African American to star in her own series and a host of other events and people that broke the barriers long after laws were put into place. Legislation is great but Adam Lambert on American Idol just may be able to help us more – Don’t Get Me Started!

I grew up performing and for a kid who was teased from day one, the “arts” were my sanctuary. I think that’s true for more than just kids who are gay, I think about the art rooms filled with so-called “disenfranchised youths” who can finally feel they belong somewhere on a campus and get to express themselves. So when I see school systems getting rid of arts programs I always think about the injustice we’re doing to kids to not expose them to the arts (which have shown to make kids better students, stay in school longer, etc.). I think of the kids like me who would have become a complete introvert (and worse) had I not had the performing arts at my public high school. Sure it’s great for the sports inclined to have schools retain sports programs because they bring “glory” to the school and make the Friday night local paper with the latest scores and great performances from youth athletes but I’m sorry to break it to you, sports aren’t for everyone. I have a dear friend who has created and developed a dance program in a public school for over twenty years, growing it to over 100 students per day that she sees (almost a tenth of the large campus of students) and yet her program is in danger of being cut this coming year while the athletics program will continue to be funded full force. But I digress.

I wrote a blog when the Adam Lambert “scandal” hit that there were photos online showing him kissing another guy. (Read that here http://hubpages.com/hub/Adam-Lambert-From-American-Idol-8-Is-Gay) I was amazed that in a short couple of days 2200 people had looked at the blog. I’m sure most didn’t care about my take on the situation and only wanted to look at the lip lock photo but what got to me more were the comments. Sure there was one that said, “Gay or straight, the time has come, Elvis has risen.” And of course there were some that had the whole, “I was really disappointed when I knew he was gay” and while I don’t think you could do any sort of accurate analysis from the comments from my post on a larger picture, when I watched Adam Lambert’s most recent performance “Tracks Of My Tears” I began to hope again that maybe, just maybe he could change a lot of people’s minds about the gay issue, making it a non-issue.

If you watch while Adam Lambert takes the criticism from the judges you can see he has been in theatre where directors and choreographers give you notes constantly but what I always see is a quiet reserve from him and a true appreciation for the praise that I think will strike a chord in people in a more positive way than we’ve seen in seasons past. If you remember the crazy girl from the auditions this season who couldn’t shut up or contestants who have thought it would get them more votes to yell at Simon, they seemed to not last because their bravado was bigger than their talent. Adam Lambert appears to be a classy artist who allows his performance to speak for him.

And while some may think this is a love letter to Adam Lambert I can assure it is not. Frankly the whole black hair makeup and black nail polish is a huge turn off to me and I don’t think he’s going to be some sort of gay advocate marching in the street (nor should he feel compelled to be). I don’t believe in “outing” anyone and if he’s not ready to say he’s gay well that’s fine too. I just hope that he doesn’t fall into the trap of many of the previous gay American Idol contestants and say he’s not gay. He can say, “That’s my personal life and I don’t care to discuss it.” But please Adam, I beg you not to go the way of a Clay Aiken who adamantly denied it and then we were supposed to all carry him on our shoulders when he finally admitted what everyone knew and no one cared about anyway.

All of this to say that although some people don’t understand why the arts are important, I wish we could help them understand that the arts often do more to change people’s minds than laws. Celebrities like it or not are role models. So when all of your daughters were running around at 15 with large sunglasses saying, “That’s hot” like Paris Hilton (making most of us cringe) like it or not, thanks to the media and her fabulous press team, she was everywhere and was a role model. My hope is that Adam Lambert can do the same for not just us forty-something gays but the kids out there. Though some will say it’s a choice us gays know that we came from the factory this way. We know that kids who are gay still have a higher suicide rate than straight kids and that there are lawmakers who are still letting their religious zealous be their guide creating discriminatory laws when they should re-read the constitution which states “All men are created equal under the law.” It doesn’t say “All straightee men” and it took years for people to realize that “women” were included in that “men” statement and it will probably take even more time for us gays to be included in that statement. So by all means, let’s get equal rights for the gays under the law but I think we need to remember that legislation is great but Adam Lambert on American Idol just may be able to help us more – Don’t Get Me Started!

A By-Gone Genre – Don’t Get Me Started!

Well this week Genre (a gay men’s magazine designed for gay men who love other men and who want to look at men that have great bodies who may or may not be gay) decided to stop publishing…at least for now. While they state they hope to make a return at some point the odds are likely we’ve seen the end of the magazine as well as some other gay magazines that according to rumor may be following suit (albeit a three piece Armani). A by-gone Genre – Don’t Get Me Started!

With talk of all the newspapers going under in this country and with the invention of the Internet I’m surprised we hadn’t gotten rid of glossy gay mags long ago. ‘Twas a time when the only way you could see a naked man’s picture was to buy one of these magazines. And while our straight counterparts insisted that they read Playboy for the articles (not for the nudie cuties) gays were much more open about the fact that they were buying the magazine to see naked men (and the fact that the pages were glossy hard paper stock made it much easier to wipe off their “appreciation” for the “models”).

Although I was delighted in 2006 when gay magazine leader, The Advocate’s readers named my blog as one of their top ten I stopped my subscription to the magazine last year. When you’re a forty-something gay and have been in a relationship with the same man for over twenty years you don’t so much buy glossy gay magazines filled with naked men. And while The Advocate is sorta glossy (but much thinner pages) it was the content getting thinner and thinner that let me let my subscription lapse. I couldn’t read one more interview with a straight celebrity and the interviewer only seeming interested in if they had a gay crush who would it be on? It had become Tiger Beat when it came to the interviews, there were a few AIDS articles and then the back was filled with overly tanned gay real estate agents trying to sell you a property in Palm Springs or Key West. Sure there were a few ads for Vegas and cruises where apparently the only ones who went were guys who worked on their abs and sat around in foursomes with their arms around one another like some eunuch orgy on the “Promenade Deck” (Where’s Julie McCoy when you need her to announce the shuffle board winners?) but rarely was there anything all that interesting.

With more and more people accepting gays (and gays accepting themselves) it seems as though the once “radical” type magazines like The Advocate lost their voice and then lost their viewership. Why? My theory is that they stopped being relevant. How many stories can we read about gays in the military? And who buys gay magazines? GAYS! And guess what? We gays all get that it doesn’t make sense to have any policy banning gays or those gays that are not telling anyone they’re gay or doing anything gay so it’s “okay” for them to be in the military. I’m not saying the whole magazine should focused on gays being killed in foreign countries (and here in the US) but with so many websites, blogs, etc. you have to make the magazine something special to earn its place to be prominently displayed on the coffee table in a gay home. Sure you can get away with one issue’s cover being a shirtless Jake Gyllenhaal but if that’s on the cover of every issue it just becomes a special gay edition of Tiger Beat or People.

What’s the answer? I’m glad you asked. And as usual, I have an answer (to everything). Gay magazines can’t just appeal to gays anymore.  So here’s what I’d create if I was a publisher (and anyone who steals this idea needs to give me a cut). I’d call it “Like Us” – the magazine would feature some celebrities but would be mostly comprised of every day (what I call, “Garden Variety”) gays, what they do for a living, tips from them, etc. Imagine if you will, getting different gay travel agents to tell you some travel booking secrets. Sure have gay designers sharing the latest looks but also “retail gays” who are buyers for stores telling you what’s selling and what isn’t. There are so many possibilities and fields where out gays work that you could cover everything from finance to fashion to football. By making the magazine about gays’ individual stories who not only are experts in their fields so they give advice gays and straight people want to read about and who are similar to what is seen as “the straight life” would help show how diverse the gay population is but at the same time it would celebrate “Ian” having two Mommies, one who is a pediatrician and the other a welder (you know how the lesbians love to wear coveralls and carry a torch). The idea wouldn’t be to homogenize gays to fit with a “straight stereotype” but to help break down barriers by producing interesting “people” articles so that you want to read it for the information and oh, guess what? These people are gay and could be your family and/or neighbors (and probably are). Think Real World on MTV (except with adults and people who actually know something) it’s making a reality show into a magazine featuring some recurring characters but also tons of guest stars to keep you interested. “Like Us” would celebrate the similarities as well as the differences between the gay and straight world.

The above may not be the answer but someone needs to find one soon because I have a feeling that Genre won’t be the only magazine going out of print (I include gays and straight magazines in this one). I can buy Vanity Fair for my coffee table and get gossipy People magazine crap as well as fashion, I can go online to look at any type of naked man, woman or anything in between so don’t replicate, invigorate the industry by us gays doing what we always do, being creGayttive being ahead of the game, creating trends and seeing life and industry in a way no one else could imagine. Otherwise we’re looking not only at a by-gone Genre but a by-gone era. – Don’t Get Me Started!

Visit Genre Magazine Online http://www.genremagazine.com/

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What Do You Mean You Won’t Sell Me The Display Hair Paste? – Don’t Get Me Started!

My Mother hadn’t washed her own hair until she was in her forties. She was from the old school where nice married Jewish ladies went to the salon twice a week and you paid someone else to wash and style your hair. So to say that I spent a lot of my childhood in a salon is an understatement. I spent a lot of time (as did my brother) waiting for our mother to come out from underneath that space aged looking dryer hat thing on her head and get a “comb out.” You can’t spend this much time around salons and not pick a few things up about how they work and how they shouldn’t work. And as I say, “I’m a gay of all trades” (I’ve worked in almost every stereotypical gay job for at least ten minutes) and therefore I know just enough to criticize everything. So when I recently dashed into the salon where I’ve been going for years to get some hair products I expected to easily walk out with the products I required. Such was not the case. True, it was an “off” time, my stylist nor any of the stylists I’ve grown to know were working but what should that matter? When I couldn’t find my hair “paste” I asked at the counter only to be told by the girl that they were out. Quickly I said, “Well, sell me one of the ones you have on display.” I was shocked that I was told no. Not only was I told no, I was given what I can only assume was a bad lie. “I can’t sell you the display one because then Shu Uemura will take away our license to sell the products.” Disgusted, I purchased the gel that I needed and walked out sans paste. (Why I bought the gel is beyond me but I did.) As I walked to my car, my outrage was palpable, what do you mean you won’t sell me the display hair paste? – Don’t Get Me Started!

Look, as a gay of all trades I worked retail for many years of my life and I’ve encountered this stupidity before but I can tell you that if and when I encounter it again I won’t buy anything from the store in question even if it’s some sort of medication that I need to stay alive. I don’t understand the mentality behind keeping a display in tact at the cost of losing a sale. I don’t understand it at all. And the people who don’t “let” you buy something from the display are only doing so because some faggy display person told them not to disturb the display at any cost. What both the sales clerk and the faggy display person don’t understand is that a sale is a sale and that sale pays for both of their salaries, so if you have something in stock (be it in a box or on display) sell the damn thing so that you can get a paycheck. True I’m sure there are stores that have these policies but once again they are also quite simply WRONG!

In the case of the now infamous hair paste, there were two of the round containers on the shelf. One was lying down and the other on top of it on its side. So there was in fact not only one on display but two therefore should there really be a clause in the Shu Uemura (I keep using the name of the product’s company because I hope they have some savvy marketing intern that looks for blogs with their product name and that they send me an apology as well as a lifetime supply of products) if the contract indeed states that there has to be one of each product on display they could have easily given me one and kept the other on display without worry about the big bad Shu Uemura.

I’ll be honest, I’m a gay in his forties who is battling being twenty pounds overweight and watching what used to be a boyish face turn older every minute (there is no portrait of Dorian Scott in my closet taking the aging process for me) so the one thing I can control is the hair that still remains on my head. That’s right, I’m a gay with what some consider disposable income if I can spend thirty bucks on a tube of what in essence is probably no different than Dippity Doo. So if I were you Shu Uemura (and the salon) I wouldn’t come between me and the only thing I can control looking good at the moment. Will my stylist hear about this? You bet. Will I ever buy any products from them again? No. You see, what the salon failed to realize today (or at least the anemic girl in black) is that there’s a thing called “online” now and we don’t have to be treated like shit and still buy the product from you that helps pay your salary. Within a few clicks (thank you Google) I not only had the option to buy it online but I had a list of eight other salons near me that sell the product. Rest assured I will be calling one of the other salons for the product and I will have my hair paste before the week is out.

Look, times are bad right now. The economy is in the toilet and people are cutting back. They’re looking at everything they purchase and are wondering whether or not they should. I splurge on one thing, hair care products. If I didn’t I wouldn’t have the most extensive display that I call the “hair care graveyard” under my sink. A barrage of broken promises in little bottles, I believed the side of them that told me it would make my hair thicker, shinier, or something else and when it didn’t, it was too expensive to just throw out so it was buried under my sink with the rest of the little expensive elixirs of liquid and lies until years later I would throw them away disgusted at the price tag and how long I had kept them. So if you have some hair paste, you only have the one on display and someone wants to pay thirty bucks for it, sell them the one on display. You can come between us gays and a lot things but sometimes we have to draw the line, consider mine drawn. What do you mean you won’t sell me the display hair paste? – Don’t Get Me Started!

Why Is The Show Brothers And Sisters So Addicting? – Don’t Get Me Started!

I like Desperate Housewives and a few other shows but for some reason when Brothers and Sisters comes on television my world must stop so that I can watch it. Sometimes I wait a day so that I can completely treasure every moment of it like one of those women from the 90’s commercials enjoying their International Coffee flavors in a private moment. And so as I sobbed along with the Walkers this past week I began to wonder why is the show Brother And Sisters so addicting? – Don’t Get Me Started!

It’s too easy for someone to tell me that the reason I’m addicted to it is because it has a male/male married couple on the show so I see myself and my guy of over twenty years in the show. I was addicted to the show from its first episode before the Kevin character was married, back when he was a big gay slut so that can’t be the reason it makes it so habit-forming that I feel like Justin before the last time he went to rehab. No, it’s got to be something else.

I knew I was going to watch this show before it even came on because of Sally Field and what I thought would also star Tom Skerritt. I defy anyone to try and not love either one of these actors. As a kid I remember watching Sally Field flying around as nun and the first time I fell in love with Tom Skerritt was when he was playing Shirley MacLaine’s husband in the ballet movie, Turning Point. So when I heard there was a show coming on with both of them and Rachel Griffiths from Six Feet Under, I was in before it was on.

In a way I feel like my grandmother about the whole thing, every day she would watch what she lovingly called “her stories” (soap operas in layman’s terms). She would be mad at the characters, cry with the characters and although most of the storylines took months and months to resolve, she was with them every step of the way. Is Brothers And Sisters any different than a soap opera? Nope but the fact that it comes on at night makes me feel better about my addiction and less like a stereotypical homosexual following in his grandmother’s footsteps watching daytime “stories.”

Look my family is far from the Walkers, with only myself and my brother and two parents who have been married forever we don’t even come close but for some reason I identify with these characters. Maybe it’s the fact that they are so co-dependent. While I don’t live in the same town with my brother and his family I wish that I did. I wish that we were having dinner every week together and were generally so much in one another’s lives we got sick of one another. For us emails and phone calls have to suffice but you see I was raised on the idea of family all being in one another’s business. My father’s family all lived on two blocks in a small town in lower, slower Delaware. Everyone was in everyone’s house at least once a day and no one ever knocked. My father has always said that his dream would be to have enough money to have a compound where we could all have our own houses but be close enough to at least “golf cart” it to one another’s houses. So maybe that’s it. Maybe my Father’s dream is rubbing off on me and I see that in the case of the fictitious Walkers?

I could say it’s the ensemble acting, the scripts, the actors and all of that would be true but there’s something more, something I can’t quite put my finger on and maybe it’s better that I not try to analyze it. Maybe I just need to allow myself to feel what I feel and sit every Sunday transfixed as the Walkers deal with their lives on display for us to see. Of course it also requires a box of tissues and no interruptions. I guess it could be worse, I could be on crack or the alcohol, instead I’ve just resigned myself to the fact that I may never know why is the show Brother And Sisters so addicting? – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Honestly, What Am I Supposed To Do With All My Anger? – Don’t Get Me Started!

I used to think that writing a blog and doing an occasional video blog spewing of all that pisses me off was enough. But as the economy dies and gays are told they can only arrange the flowers at a wedding instead of having equal rights to actually marry, I have to wonder honestly what am I supposed to do with all my anger? – Don’t Get Me Started!

I’d like to think that I’m an evolved person. I’d like to think I could just burn a candle, do some Yoga and not only lose weight and become more limber but also be at peace with myself and the world around me. But such is not the case. I could go off on a whole, “You know you’re angry when…” but it should suffice to say that the list is far longer than anyone would want to read.

I used to work with a choreographer who when we weren’t getting the choreography (or at least not to her satisfaction) she would stop, look up at the heavens and say, “Is it I Lord? Is it I?” And for awhile I thought it was me but the more I think about it the more I realize that it’s not me at all, it’s everyone around me.

Oh sure, I might think that it’s me due to the fact that about four cars that I’ve been behind on the road recently have pulled over to the side of the road to let me pass them. One guy I think just thought the right-hand lane was for people who are talking on their cell phones and driving poorly at the same time so I don’t think he counts. As he crawled at a speed much slower than the limit and eventually just pulled to the extreme right side of the road, I vroomed past him and I couldn’t help but shake a fist and scream an expletive that could only be heard if sound was escaping from my closed sun roof.

Thanks to a noted therapist (friend of mine who I met through my website and have never seen professionally or personally as he lives in Australia) he tells me that it’s everyone else’s fault. And who am I not to believe a professional? You see, I’m a giver. I can’t help myself, I come from a long line of care givers so even if you’re a stranger on the street I’m going to put your needs before mine. Which is all well and good and you would think would make me the president of something like the Oprah Angel Network but you see all this “good deed doing” does you in and eventually you feel your face starting to peel off like a façade from a building that was built by your Jewish ancestors when they were slaves and were only given dirt, water and some straw yet they managed to build the Pyramids and guess what, they’re still standing; albeit without a nose. (Oh, if only I were Michael Jackson with no nose, then I would be called, “eccentric” as I sat in my car and screamed at the passer-bys).

The thing is that I think the time to stop being so delightful is upon me. I can’t take the headaches anymore, I mean literally my head aches and thanks to a healthy long line of almost-hypochondriacs in my family for generations, I have now convinced myself that I’m on my way to a stroke. But as I say, “Don’t let my stroke get in your way, simply step over me like you’ve been stepping on me and go about your life with no concern for me whatsoever.” (For those uneducated, that’s called sarcasm and Jewish guilt, the gifts that keeps on giving)

I guess I need to get to that place that the “Red Hat Ladies” have gotten to except I don’t want to wear a hat and hardly want to be grouped in with anyone else. I want to be Tigger because the wonderful thing about Tiggers is I’m the only one. You see, I was born as a show biz kid and as my life progressed and no one wanted me on a stage of any kind, I have made my everyday life a show. I play this character that like some gay chameleon adapts to my surroundings to entertain and be liked. But recently I’ve begun to feel like Yul Brynner. Toward the end of his life he had been in so many productions of the musical The King And I he began to think of himself as the king of Siam. He lost himself and so have I. (As my mother once said to me, “I’m not myself. I’m not even my next door neighbor. I’m around the block somewhere.”) I’ve become a character in my own show that I don’t even recognize. I’ve been playing for laughs for so many years that I’ve forgotten what made the script funny in the first place. The makeup is wearing thin, I’m getting too old for the role and what was once a Broadway production now feels like a bad bus and truck company filled with less than talented supporting players.

If this were a show I would know exactly how to fix it. I’ve always been good at fixing shows, other people’s lives and an occasional electronic gadget that isn’t working properly but how do you stop being what you’ve become to be yourself? I don’t have the money or the time to go to an ashram to find out so I’ve decided to blame the supporting cast. I’m the STAR, dammit and why in God’s name don’t the other drivers on the road get that the STAR goes first?!? Why then don’t so-called friends get that my problems are way more important than theirs? Why doesn’t everyone get that my time is more precious than theirs? Look, I’ve got a run of the play contract so I’m here for the duration but the supporting cast better start looking over their shoulders because I’m casting a new bunch that’s younger, adores me more and who won’t piss me off…well, not as much. In the meantime, honestly what am I supposed to do with all my anger? – Don’t Get Me Started!

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You’re Not Protecting Children From “The Gays” You’re Just Trying To Pass Down Your Own Prejudices! – Don’t Get Me Started!

I’ve been very fortunate in my life to have friends with children who have opened their doors (sometimes their couches) for me and accepted me as one of their family. I remember the first time I went to visit with a couple that had two daughters who were about age 6 and 8 at the time. My friend said to me later that the girls asked if I was gay and she told them that I was and they were like, “Oh, okay then we can play Mystery Date when he comes over.” (And we did!)That was about the extent of the conversation. Through the years I have become a close friend with the couple but also with the girls who are now grown. You could say it’s because the couple (and before I go any further I guess I need to say that they are a male/female couple) were in theatre so the girls were around homosexuals from an early age, the couple themselves were more accepting of gays, etc. and although some of that may be true, it’s more about the people themselves, their personal beliefs and how they chose to raise their children. This is not true of many of my other straight friends with kids and I just have to say that you’re not protecting children from “The Gays” you’re just trying to pass down your own prejudices! – Don’t Get Me Started!

Even if you’re like a friend of mine who’s excuse for not telling her child I was gay was because she said that the reason she didn’t want her seven year old daughter to know I was gay was because she didn’t want her to think of such things as sex at such an early age, the same way she didn’t want her to stop believing in Santa Claus. WHAT?!? How do the two go together or make any sense? I guess the argument is that homosexuality is all about the sex. (After all, it has sex in the title of it for Chrissakes) But in the case of the person we’re talking about, we’re talking about a child who knew both me and my partner for her entire life so if she’s asking questions or even if she asks why Scott isn’t married, I don’t think it’s taking away her imagination or childhood to explain that Scott has Michael and they are just like Mommy and Daddy, they live together and they love one another very much. No need for an anatomy lesson, to pull out an Inches magazine or act out the reason gay marriage isn’t allowed in America with puppets.

This blog came about when I read an article in the USA Today where an Oklahoma high school teacher was fired over assigning, “The Laramie Project” a play about the brutal hate killing of Matthew Shepard. With the Principal’s permission she showed her class the HBO produced film in her class. After watching it, her students decided to film selected scenes from the play themselves for an in-school project. A few weeks in, the 50 year old teacher was told to stop production. After students protested, the teacher held a twenty minute ceremony in a nearby park in which students wrote their thoughts and rolled them into helium balloons, then releasing them. The next day her class was cancelled and when the teacher complained to a school board member the Superintendent put the teacher on paid leave and recommended that she be fired. The school board approved her resignation last Friday. While some say she was fired for complaining to a school board member, others feel it was the homophobia in the rural community that caused the firing. One senior (a former student of the teacher) said, “They don’t want something like this addressed in our community.” The teacher, Debra Taylor says she was trying to help students examine their own beliefs. “I didn’t ask them to change their belief systems,” she says, “but what I asked them was, ‘Can you be tolerant of those that are different from you?’ Many times the students came back and said, ‘I don’t like gays.” I said: ‘I’m not asking you to like gays. But can you be tolerant?’”

Whether it’s a school teacher trying to get kids to think about their belief system or around a family’s kitchen table I guess I just don’t see the danger. I sat at dinner with my parents and brother for a lot of years and there was a lot discussed around our table. I was raised in a home where questions were not only welcomed but expected. The best news is that our questions were always answered even if the answer was “I don’t know. Let’s find out.”

The things that are supposedly kept secret from children (I’ve always credited kids with being much more knowledgeable than their parents realize) are the things that become much bigger deals for them later when they find out they’ve been lied to by their parents. I’m not suggesting that there be a clinical discussion of homosexuality with seven year olds (I’m a strong believer in age appropriate answers) but if a child says to another child, “You’re gay” in a derogatory tone, regardless of what the age is, it’s a parent’s responsibility to correct that child by first asking if they know what it means and second giving them the simple answer that being gay is when two boys or two girls love each other. The above happened with my friend who wanted to spare her child gays and keep Santa Claus. She simply told her child, “That’s not a nice thing to say” without any further explanation. Maybe it’s not a nice thing to say but it’s also not nice to be silent when your child needs answers. And are you really afraid of Santa Claus or are you just projecting your own prejudices or fear of what you’re going to have to deal with as your child grows and asks questions about this and other topics?

I know I’m different than a majority of my fellow Americans because I’m gay (short, Jewish, etc.). I don’t mind being different, I just mind being marginalized by not only the laws but by schools and parents. It’s got to start somewhere. I don’t have kids so I can’t make the difference with my own children but I can do it with my nieces and help my friends if they need the answers for their kids. I just ask that you take a moment to think about why you don’t want your kids to know about the existence of gays. Is it to keep them pure or is it as I suspect, you’re not protecting children from “The Gays” you’re just trying to pass down your own prejudices! – Don’t Get Me Started!

Write About Being Gay, Having Eye Crust, Reasons I Won’t Be A Male Prostitute Is Fine But Dear God Scott, Don’t Write About Religion! – Don’t Get Me Started!

Through the years of writing this blog I always find it more than interesting the blogs that people comment on and more interesting the ones that they don’t. You see I began these blogs as rants and that’s basically what they are, a way for me to vent the frustrations of everyday life as a Jewish, gay, short, fifteen (really twenty) pounds overweight man just wondering why I can’t be famous, rich and in the tabloids. The one constant I’ve discovered is that I can write about being gay, having eye crust, reasons I won’t be a male prostitute is fine but dear God Scott, don’t write about religion! – Don’t Get Me Started!

To a large extent I do get it. Religion (for me anyway) has always been one of the most personal things about me. I’m one of “those” that consider myself “spiritual” but not religious because the whole word “religion” makes me think of organized religion and I can’t think of a group more hypocritical than those in organized religion except bitchy queens. They’re really the same. They’ll tell you one thing to your face but in their heart of hearts they don’t believe it. For the religious they act all “holier than thou” and then when they’re in private they’re begging for their “privates” to be tortured or whipped creamed or something odder than odd. With the bitchy queens, they spend their lives being horribly funny with their put downs of others but late at night when the eye lashes come off, they sit alone depressed that they don’t have washboard abs and aren’t mistaken for Lou Ferrigno instead of Lou Ferrigno’s mother.

Look, I had a good mother too who instructed me to never talk about politics or religion in mixed company. (Did you ever notice that “mixed” company is just when you’re in a room of people who don’t all believe what you believe? And shouldn’t that be a good thing, causing thought provoking discussions? When what it seems to have come to mean is just that you’re in a room with people who need to be “protected” from certain topics. Isn’t it time we all get a little less sensitive?) So perhaps that’s why people don’t comment when I go off about the Evangelicals releasing a statement that they’re disappointed in Obama. Who are they to be disappointed and why should we care what they think?

Just like the kids who put naked pictures of themselves on Facebook, if you put something out there you don’t really fully “own” it anymore. I don’t care if it’s a picture, a phrase or a video blog, once it’s in the “web zone” you’ve handed it over to the public at large and very rarely can you take it back. So while there was a time when politicians and religious leaders would be haunted by an old photo found of them with their ass cheeks sticking out of a car window when they were twenty, I have a feeling with all the MySpace, Facebook, etc. there will be very few “future leaders” who won’t have bigger skeletons posted in their online closet and I have a feeling we’ll decide as a society that things like naked body parts aren’t as big a deal as we once thought that they were or we’ll understand that we all do things in our youth (and some people in their adult lives) we wish no one knew about but thanks to technology most likely no matter what you do and where you do it, someone somewhere will get a picture or video of you that will undoubtedly haunt you (are you listening Michael Richards, Michael Phelps and everyone else?).

New Rule, Bill Maher Needs To Get Funny Again Or Get Off My Tivo! – Don’t Get Me Started!

It actually began last season. I would find myself turning on Real Time With Bill Maher and almost always either falling asleep or turning it off. Hey, I figure anyone can have a few bad shows so I stuck with it and whenever it was on, my faithful Tivo was catching it for me. Well, I’ve watched the first three episodes of the new season and new rule, Bill Maher needs to get funny again or get off my Tivo! – Don’t Get Me Started!

I started watching Bill Maher on Politically Incorrect and so it was only natural that I would follow him when he made the move to HBO. And for awhile it seemed as though he thrived. He had on interesting guests and they debated in a way that got me all riled up from my sofa. I liked the diversity of the people he had on and I liked his ability to moderate it and only on occasion bring in some self-indulgent comic bit that more times than not did not work.

But as I feared, with Bush out of the White House, political comedians seem to have forgotten how to be funny without just showing a video or audio clip of something stupid the President does and then make a funny face. Obama is causing comedians to actually go back and re-visit why they were political comedians to begin with and in most cases they are failing as miserably as the economy. You could say that it isn’t their fault but in a way, much like the person who was sold on the idea that they could buy a house they couldn’t afford just figuring they were getting the “easy way out” to the American dream, so too have comedians. They were greedy and lucky to have all that material and now that it’s not there they want to blame everyone else and I’m afraid that Bill Maher is no exception.

Bill Maher has cut his panel from three to two this year saying in his most recent show that it was easier to deal with but I think it may be that the “bookers” may be having problems finding people who actually want to be on the show at this point. You see, Mr. Maher needs to realize that when one joke bombs in your opening monologue and you chastise the audience with a “fuck you” look that’s okay but when you’re forced to do that after every joke throughout the show you become a little like the angry drunk that no one wants to be around. And so is the case here. The last show was filled with very few moments of interest and yet Bill Maher wants to hold the audience responsible not him or his writers. Does he not have anyone in his camp saying, “Look Bill, you can’t play pissed off with the audience if the jokes aren’t funny.”

Last week’s episode was a prime example why even though the network may not cancel his show it’s officially been cancelled from my Tivo lineup. I can’t even remember the initial interview he did one on one with anyone, that’s how stimulating that was and then he went to his panel of two guys. One black one white, one conservative and one liberal. Who knows what either one said as the black professor droned on and on as if he was one of those guys from prison who get a law book and learns a bunch of big words but has no idea what they mean, “The ramification of the edification of the masturbation of the eloquence.” I know that he was talking about being articulate and is an Ivy League professor but honestly it was just a barrage of words from the dictionary letters “B” through “Q” from the sound of it. The white guy did his part by being outraged but honestly, I don’t know if Maher was stoned or what but he just sort of sat back and watched the two talk like, “Wow, lips are really crazy looking when you stare at them too long, aren’t they?” He didn’t moderate, host, add his own thoughts he just sat there and took the paycheck. As if these guys weren’t bad enough, he tried to score with his latest running segment and was met with little response so once again he attacked his audience. And as if the show wasn’t one big smelly pile to begin with, he ends the show by bring on Sarah Silverman, who is one of the funniest and most outrageous people in the world of comedy and smacked both of their asses by a) not really having anything to talk about with her and b) not knowing her inability to obviously do less than great in an improvised situation. As he continually told her how funny and smart she was (like a guy who was pathetically trying to pick up a girl that had just dumped her boyfriend…oh wait, that’s who she is) she could only manage one or two word answers and the word, “cunt” to make her funny.

Is it easy to sit back and criticize? You bet, but isn’t that what Maher is famous for? And if he’s not going to give us political insight with a rapier wit that we had come to know him for than what makes him different than the guy on the corner standing on a box? Is it his designer suit that is shinier than his personality? And with all of Maher’s disdain for his audience and obviously hurt feelings that no one gave a shit about his movie, how long is it before Bill Maher goes Michael Richards on his audience? I’ll bet it won’t be long. I won’t be watching to see it but when it happens I’m sure it’ll be all over YouTube so I’ll catch it like you should catch Bill Maher…in reruns (from previous seasons). New rule, Bill Maher needs to get funny again or get off my Tivo! – Don’t Get Me Started!

Evangelicals Are “Disappointed” In Obama And Who Cares? – Don’t Get Me Started!

I read a report that the Evangelicals are disappointed in Obama, stating that they sat down at the table with him and although they knew his views on abortion and stem cell research before they backed him in the election, they’re officially “disappointed” in him. Disappointed that what…he kept his word and is doing what he said he would do? For too long the religious right have run this country but it’s my prayer that those times are changing. We no longer have a President who thinks we’re “in our last days” (and does everything in his power to see to it that the apocalypse actually happens) we have a President who is intelligent and understands the importance of science as well as a place for his faith while understanding that not everyone believes what he believes and he’s okay with that. Evangelicals are “disappointed” in Obama and who cares? – Don’t Get Me Started!

Much like the Catholic Church who has been allowed to amass fortunes without paying taxes (only to go bankrupt to avoid paying off all the people whose lives they’ve crushed with their pedophile priests) the Evangelicals needs to begin to understand that they are no longer the “moral majority.” Christians are NOT the keepers of morality in the United States nor should they be from what we’ve seen time and time again from them.

Disappointed? This is my most hated word in the English language because no matter what anyone tells me, that word carries along a judgment with it and who the hell are any of us to judge others? Before you say it let me write it for you. Yes, I make judgments all the time (and boy do people write in to tell me about it. I wrote a blog years ago about a “Life Coach” I saw in Starbucks who seemed as though she couldn’t coach a cat from under a sofa and only two days ago someone wrote to me to chastise me for “judging” someone’s ability by their appearance, etc.) We’re all constantly living in our glass houses with simply buckets full of stones that we throw daily. A disappointment is when your hair color doesn’t come out right. To me, to be disappointed is human, to criticize is divine.

So while we’re on the whole idea of disappointed, let me tell you how disappointed I am in the fact that eleven military personnel who were fighting for our country we’re “relieved from duty” in January alone because they’re gay. Were they bad in their posts? No, in fact most were exceptional but because they are gay, they’re out. This should have me saying, “Serves the straightees right.  Straightees start these wars and so the straightees should clean up their own mess.” But you know what? That’s not how I feel. This doesn’t disappoint me, it makes me mad as hell that not only is this ridiculous discrimination allowed to exist but the reality is that we don’t have our best people possible helping keep America safe just because they’re gay. Frankly that makes me want to vomit. And to piss you righteous “keep the gays out of the military they’ll want to get into my son’s foxhole” people as riled up as me, it makes me want to vomit and wipe my mouth on an American flag. (Which, by the way is still legal!)

Evangelicals need to learn that the time has come for them to be put in their place. They can believe whatever they want, that’s why we’re all here in America but they can’t run the country (Bush proved that for them). For years they have scared people with the concept of hell to raise money so that they can take their untaxed billions and dole it out to the political people they need to keep their agenda alive. Well guess what? America is for you but it’s not for you exclusively and it’s time you learned that my holier than thou ones. Obama doesn’t need to be everyone’s personal Jesus, nor should he want to be (and besides, you Evangelicals seem to have plenty of demi-gods the way you worship your religious leaders more than you seem to worship the big JC). Obama doesn’t need your judgment or you worship, he just needs you to respect the fact that he’s the leader of our country.

The man has been in office for roughly forty-five days but I guess to the Evangelicals they were expecting miracles (even though none of their leaders have been able to make any happen in my lifetime). Look, I want “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” gone, I want the rights that every other couple has under the law with my partner of over twenty years, I want a lot but the difference is that I’m willing to wait my turn while Obama and his team try to figure out the economic mess that was built by greed and a lack of government regulators actually regulating. There’s a lot to do kids so I wouldn’t start getting disappointed quite yet, instead I think it’s time for you to take a long hard look in a mirror. What you really need is for someone to go a little JFK on your asses and I’m more than willing to be that person, it’s time to start asking what you can do for your country, not what your country can do for you. Evangelicals are “disappointed” in Obama and who cares? – Don’t Get Me Started!

When Someone At Work Says, “I Need Your Help With…” What They Really Mean Is That They’re Going To Try Pawning THEIR Work Off On You! – Don’t Get Me Started!

I don’t brag about a lot of things but I will tell you this, I’m very good at what I do. Currently I’m an Executive Assistant for a CEO (think Devil Wears Prada but I should be so much thinner and my boss is much, much nicer). At times I know that some of the other people who work in our offices are wishing they had me for their assistant and some just wish they had someone who would do their work for them. While I’m all about the team spirit, I can assure you that this gay was not born yesterday and I can tell a mile away when someone at work says, “I need your help with…” what they really mean is that they’re going to try pawning THEIR work off on you! – Don’t Get Me Started!

Look, I’m smarter than the average gay so if you think your passive aggressive bullshit is going to work on me you are sadly mistaken. However I know that there are people out there who may not be as well-versed shall we say, at seeing through the bullshit and more importantly, protecting themselves. So allow your favorite Gaytriarch to assist you.

If someone should use that fateful “I need your help” line with you and you really don’t have the time to do their project for them use this technique, “Can you tell me what you need help with so that I can see if I have time to do it right now or if it will have to wait?” Usually this stops them dead in their tracks. They think by making it sound as though they only need your help that you’ll drop everything and assist them immediately (even if it means doing everything for them). This also forces them to blow their cover a bit. One person I work with tried to get at it this way and here’s how it went down…learn my little grasshoppers, learn…

CW (Co-Worker): “Scott, can I get your help with a fax?”

Me: Sure, what do you need help with exactly?

CW: I need a fax cover sheet and need to fax something

(Side note, this was something for their personal life not their work life)

Me: (not leaving my seat) Well, the fax cover sheet templates are on the server located in the Fax/Memo folder. Let me know if you don’t find them.

CW: (After ten minutes of making loud noises as she filled out the fax form and then heads to the fax machine) Well, I did the cover sheet but how does this fax machine work?

Me: (still at my seat) Dial “9” and then the number, you don’t need the area code if it’s local and it goes face down in the fax machine.

CW: (still trying to get me to do it) Where does it go in the fax machine? The top?

(They use this, “look at me I’m incompetent” ploy as they’re still trying to get you to do at least some of their work that was never yours to begin with, stay seated, stay strong.)

Me: Yup!

CW: Does it go face down or face up?

Me: Face down.

CW: Do I need to dial a “9” or anything?

Me: Yup

CW: What about the area code?

Me: Not if it’s a local number.

CW: (Big sigh as if she’s just solved the world’s financial crisis) Okay, well I took care of it. Now how do I know if it’s gone through?

Me: It’ll print a receipt and it states “OK” under the status if it went through.

CW: The paper just came out and it has “OK” on it, does that mean it went through?

Me: Yup.

CW: Oh, hope you don’t mind but I told the people I was faxing this information to that if they had any questions to just call you.

Me: (eyes rolling) ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Look, I don’t mind helping anyone, I had a woman who after I held the door for her at Starbucks this morning, even though I had to wait for a little for her to get to the door say, “Why don’t you go ahead of me? You guys are always holding the door and then you have to wait too.” To show that chivalry is not dead, I insisted she go first. But when someone is just lazy I tend to think of an expression my father uses, “I wouldn’t piss on them if they were on fire.” When someone at work says, “I need your help with…” what they really mean is that they’re going to try pawning THEIR work off on you! – Don’t Get Me Started!

Macy’s Is Holding My Underwear Hostage – Don’t Get Me Started!

We all know that a gay man is only as good as his underwear, right? I mean, that’s a given. I remember how the gays put the “trunk” or “boxer brief” style underwear on the map. We did such a good job that it was even a joke on Will and Grace where Will is doing his laundry and Molly Shannon says, “You funny gay guy.” And when he asks how she knew she points out the fact that he has so many pairs of boxer briefs that it was obvious. So I would have to say that I’m pretty stereotypical when it comes to wanting to have nice underwear. I guess I feel that if you feel good underneath that at some level it’s bound to come out in the way you carry yourself, look, etc. And while my body in no way shape or form resembles the abdomen of the guy on the box I’m a sucker for good packaging and deluding myself that it’ll look exactly the same way on my Oompah Loompah shape of a body. So I went to Macy’s the other day to get some underwear and while checking my ID (as I was using a credit card) the woman told me that there was a sale coming up three days for locals and that I could get the 20% off if I paid for it now, left the underwear and came back when the sale was on to pick it up. Macy’s is holding my underwear hostage – Don’t Get Me Started!

Now let me say that I had never heard of such a thing as a store “keeping” your purchase that you’ve all ready purchased and not letting you have it until a special day. I’ve always been the one who doesn’t have the coupon from the paper, the shirt I choose is NOT one of the ones on sale or something that shopping always ends up with me feeling as though I came close but didn’t quite make it when it came to the big sale that had just ended or was going to go on a day after my purchase. My timing when it comes to sales  is so bad that I wonder if the Jews aren’t going to throw me out at some point soon because as we all know, Jews never pay retail and if they do it’s when a sale is going on. However let it be known that I was still Jew enough to get the 20% and wait the few days.

The thing is that as I was walking away from the counter I wondered if I should have just been a sport and paid the full amount. Walking away with just a receipt is a little like wanting an Ipod or something and when you open the box that is shaped like it thinking “this is it” you find it’s a gift certificate for an Ipod instead of the real thing.  Patience you say? I’ve never had any. If I want something, I want it now. That’s right, I’m a much older, gayer, Jewish version of Veruca Salt from Willy Wonka.

And although I know the DKNY shirt I bought was on the rack before I semi-purchased it and that the underwear would remain in their boxes and plastic packaging until I pick them up it makes me nervous. First of all I worry that they’ll misplace everything and I’ll have nothing but the receipt. Second I worry that someone is going to be like, “Hey, look what this guy bought let me try it all on.” (And even though nothing is touching my body before being washed it still is a little oogie boogie feeling to me…and not in a disco classic “get down, boogie oogie, oogie” kind of way). I guess more than anything I don’t understand why they’re holding it and why they couldn’t give it to me when I bought it?

I get that they want me to come back and purchase even more stuff as the sale is going on but I’ve all ready seen everything they have to offer and unless they’re going to pay me to take last year’s Affliction t-shirts off their hands (which they have a gross of them hanging on the shelves) I’ll be going home with my boxes of underwear, package of 2Xist undershirts and the DKNY dress shirt only. Just not today, or tomorrow, not when I purchase it or when I say but when Macy’s says I can have it. Ugh. Talk about taking the gay out of a gay day of underwear shopping! Macy’s is holding my underwear hostage – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Is What’s Going On With The Economy Just A Larger Picture Of The Takers And Givers In Our Own Lives? – Don’t Get Me Started!

I know that a lot of people come to my blog to read something witty, sometimes silly, almost always kvetching, all done from my Jewish gay perspective on life. Well this blog may do all those things but the disclaimer is that it’s probably going to be a little less frivolous than usual so if you’re looking for silly reading today, go here (http://hubpages.com/hub/At_Least_Ten_Reasons_Why_I_Will_Never_Be_A_Male_Prostitute) I work with some really great people so please don’t think I’m one of those people who post Dilbert cartoons on my computer monitor or watch the show, The Office and go, “Wow, that’s totally my office.” But what I’ve discovered working in the corporate sector for over ten years now (not just at my current job) is that there are people who think they deserve more money, better title, etc. all the while not really doing or contributing that much. And so I began to wonder is what’s going on with the economy just a larger picture of the takers and givers in our own lives? – Don’t Get Me Started!

It may not be at work for you but we all know who the “Takers” are and the “Givers” are around us. If you don’t know the difference allow me to assist you, a “Taker” is someone who doesn’t tell the cashier she’s missed an item, given too much change back or steals a bunch of office supplies under the guise that they’re not paid enough so this is only fair and part of their just “compensation.” A “Giver” tells the cashier she’s missed an item, gives her back the extra change she gave because you don’t want her drawer to be “off” at the end of her shift and often times just uses the same pen at work until it runs out of ink. How does this relate to my idea about the economy?

What my theory is that for a long time we didn’t say anything about the banks loaning us money we knew was more than we could comfortably pay back so we brought our own debt ratios up and those who had more (corporations, banks, etc.) ran up their bill exponentially until suddenly no one had money they only had a bunch of papers telling us how in debt we were (are). Did we think the government or banks or whatever “owed” us the houses we couldn’t afford like the co-worker who steals office supplies? And is it right for us to be so disgruntled that we couldn’t take those “office supplies” and sell them for three times their value to some unsuspecting sucker at our garage sale?

What I’ve learned is that I have always lived beyond my means but I’ve always accepted the responsibility for it. Whether it was a poor credit score or what have you, I never blamed anyone else for my own mistakes. By the same token, I think that allowing credit card companies to jack up interest rates so high is absolutely criminal. Yes, the debt was incurred but should these credit card companies that extended the credit be allowed to make ridiculous profits and keep people slaves where they can never pay off the debt? To those who don’t use credit cards they would say we made our beds (or bought our beds on credit) and so we must lie in them, never being able to pay off the balance of our credit cards. I don’t know who is right on this one.

But what I’m talking about is more fundamental than credit cards, what I’m talking about are the people who feel they deserve big titles, salaries, cars, houses, yachts and yet want to work so very little for it. And you can’t get a better example of this than the executives with the huge severance packages that totally screw up a company, get fired and leave with more money than if they had worked and made the company successful. These people are “Takers” and I’m proud to say that while people may call me a lot of things, I not one of the “Takers.”

When I was young and taking dance class my parents would drop me off and tell me that I was to do everything the teacher told me. In school if there was a problem, my parents looked to me first and the teacher second for responsibility. They didn’t listen to me telling them that the teacher just didn’t like me or was unfair. And when I went to work my father told me that if I agreed to do a job that whether I was getting paid one dollar or one million that if I agreed to do the job I should do it to the best of my ability and never complain about someone making more than me or what have you because that’s what I had agreed to, it was my word and therefore meant my honor and showed my character. (He also taught me to stick up for myself if I was being taken advantage of by anyone.)

I got out of teaching kids dance (even though I loved it) because parents would complain that I was “hurting their child’s self-esteem” if I made even the slightest correction to what they were doing (usually to make sure they weren’t hurting themselves by doing something incorrectly). Time and time again I hear my friends tell me that their kid’s teachers are just idiots and nothing is their child’s fault. (Perhaps that’s why we have a deteriorating educational system and teachers are so grossly under paid and undervalued?) And I can’t tell you how many people I have worked with over the years who do nothing but complain about what they’re paid even though they don’t really want to work they feel they deserve a larger compensation package, bigger title and more time off.

Look, I’m not perfect by any stretch of the imagination and while I wouldn’t turn up my nose if I was suddenly independently wealthy and didn’t have to work anymore, there’s a large part of me that likes the feeling of working and it even makes me feel better about myself. I’m not a saint but I’m not a “Taker” and I wonder is what’s going on with the economy just a larger picture of the takers and givers in our own lives? – Don’t Get Me Started!

Get Rid Of Barbie? Now You’ve Gone Too Far! – Don’t Get Me Started!

When I first heard it as a blurb on the evening news as they went to commercial I have to admit that I thought that the reason they were saying, “Barbie soon to be banned from shelves?” was that somehow the Barbies were being made in China and had lead eyelashes or something. It wasn’t until this morning when I was reading the news that the whole ugly story came out. Apparently a West Virginia lawmaker wants Barbie banned because (according to him) she promotes beauty over intelligence. Get rid of Barbie? Now you’ve gone too far! – Don’t Get Me Started!

What does a forty-something gay care about Barbie? First let me make it clear that I never had one and that I am not a “collector” of Barbies (as some people are convinced gays must all want dolls to play with…well, some do but let’s just say that neither Barbie nor Ken’s “parts” are up to what gays who want dolls are looking for). To be honest, I can take or leave her but I think that when we start making laws against Barbie we’re all headed to hell in a hand basket! First of all, is this something that lawmakers anywhere should be spending their time and tax payers’ money on at the moment? I mean shouldn’t we be trying to create jobs for people and help people keep roofs over their heads and food on their plates instead of worrying about that evil blonde plastic vixen?

And by the way, I don’t know where this lawmaker has been lately but it seems to me that Barbie does not just tool about in her “Dream Car” and go to her “Dream House” anymore. Barbie has gotten her veterinarian degree, medical degree and she is also very involved in charity work with her stunning charity benefit hostess look which benefited the Children’s Organ Transplant Association (as well as the cancer charity doll and the Heart Association doll, etc). Frankly I don’t even know how Barbie has time to do her hair in the morning with all she has to do and her little feet must just be killing her at the end of the day (anyone who has worn plastic shoes before will know this to be the case).

Look, I’m all for giving our children better self-esteem and better role models but you decide, who is better – Barbie or Rihanna who is going back to an abusive boyfriend? We all know Barbie wouldn’t stand for that crap and that if Ken so much as lifted his fully jointed hand to her she would Karate chop him (thanks to the fact that she IS a black belt in Karate). And do you know that there are actually studies out now that say our children are so narcissistic that they have no sense about them nor do they feel they should have to do anything they don’t want to do including being kind to others because no one is as important as they are?

I say we need Barbie in our lives and so do our kids. Does anyone else find it as sad as I do that five year olds want cell phones instead of Barbies or Transformers? Have you been down the toy aisle lately to see almost all the toys that you have to actually use your imagination with and aren’t fueled by engines or computer chips are selling for next to nothing and just sitting on shelves?

As with most things I have to (yes I’m ready for the angry emails) blame the parents. I think it’s a parent’s duty to tell their kids they can be anything they want but then follow it up with, “if you work hard enough.” I think it’s the parents who should be saying yes, Barbie IS beautiful but she’s just a doll, you’re more beautiful because you’re real and have a mind that can take in so much knowledge if you just work hard in school, can be nice to your siblings and know what it feels like to be loved.

Like most things in life, we’re lazy and we want to blame someone else. I remember loving my Lite Brite as a kid and even though I begged for the kit with the “extra pegs” (so that I could make Bugs Bunny like on the commercial) my parents encouraged me to try to make Bugs Bunny my own way with the pegs that I had. Maybe they were just cheap but maybe, just maybe they were teaching me a lesson about appreciating what I had and using my imagination. I chose the latter. So why ban Barbie when it’s the parents that should be helping their children maneuver through these lessons, not lawmakers? If the lawmakers really want to help children (and my nerves) they’ll get those kids away from OctoMom and not let her have a reality series! Get rid of Barbie? Now you’ve gone too far! – Don’t Get Me Started!

Adam Lambert From American Idol 8 Is Gay? – Don’t Get Me Started!

It never ceases to amaze me how since the dawn of time there have been gays who have been sex symbols and/or famous and the women, men and whomever else love them always seem surprised when they come out while the media chooses to spin it to a frenzy similar to that of a salad in a Salad Spinner. Adam Lambert from American Idol 8 is gay? – Don’t Get Me Started!

At the risk of being stoned by my fellow gays I will tell you that one look at Lambert and my gay “spidey” senses went off. I know that gays come in all shapes and sizes now and that some you can’t tell for sure if they’re gay (sometimes they can’t decide or admit it to themselves either) but I knew with Lambert and for those of you who do not possess these skills, let me just say it’s as loud in your head as Ethel Merman singing. The same gay senses alerted me that Clay Aiken was gay the minute I saw him on Idol as well as a bunch of the other boys who have graced the stage. And while I tend to call  this a “Jimmy Cracked Corn” issue – translation: “I don’t care” about it, I’m simply amazed that people are still spinning this crap up and more to the point that there are people out there who still give a crap.

However I have to say that loyalty is loyalty and when you read some of the comments from the Vblog I did about why I don’t care that Clay Aiken is gay you’ll understand that most “fans” are a little…how should I put this…not all that reality based. They were not happy about my not caring or not thinking that Mr. Aiken’s coming out was the most important thing since a gay landed on the moon (oh right, sorry, Lance Bass never made it there). See my video about that here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4GLhjvVZ6M

Besides the fact that I don’t know why anyone would care that Adam Lambert is gay, I guess the thing that really gets me is that some people are saying that he should be removed from the competition due to the fact that someone has posted photos of him…horror of horrors…kissing another guy on the Internet. While I do think this is a bit of a cautionary tale about how now that anyone and everyone is blogging, posting photos on MySpace and Facebook as well as videos on YouTube that if you don’t want them to be seen by everyone (eventually they are always seen) you shouldn’t post them in the first place. The thing is that with most photos posted online all you have to do is right click on them, choose “save as” and guess what? You now have that photo on your hard drive and even if someone removes it from the Internet, you’ve still got it.

So all of the above is well and good to say but by the same token you have to ask yourself why in 2009 gay smearing is still so prevalent? He didn’t have his dick out or anything (although I also didn’t understand why they got rid of Frenchie that one season for having taken photos in lingerie. And are those two examples similar?) I mean today checking out at a grocery store I saw the big headline “Obama Gay Scandal” with a picture of our First Lady on the cover. I wouldn’t dare even read the rest of the headline because I think it’s ridiculous but why is almost anything that gets reported in the media that has someone gay or being accused of being gay attached to it referred to as a “scandal?” To be fair, I also think that gay magazines should act less like Tiger Beat and not ask every straight actor who they interview who they would have a same-sex crush on if they had one. The gay media has some learning to do too.

Would it be so terrible if we had a gay American Idol contestant who was out while on the show? I mean, everyone knew Clay Aiken was gay but it was the geeky red haired elephant in the room that no one talked about, then there was the guy from the first season who was one of the top ten but no one cared about him who came out three years later to a yawn and what about the guy who dropped out that one season and no one knew why until it came out that he had played the “hokey pokey” with his dick by exposing his member to a member of the same sex on the production staff while “shaking it all about” in an Idol bathroom?

Look, like it or not there are gay people in every walk of life. Period. And although the religious right and haters of the world would like us to go away, we’re not going anywhere. So how about doing everyone a favor and should it come up, before it gets smeared all over the Internet and super market rags, why not just say, “Yup, I’m gay and that’s all I’m going to say about it.”

This doesn’t just go for singers on American Idol. Do you testosterone filled guys sitting on the sofa watching sports and scratching who think gays are “fags” and “creep you out” don’t exist in every one of the locker rooms of the teams you root on while you watch them on TV? And isn’t it a little gay how you worship these athletes and even wear their jerseys like some high school cheerleader wearing her quarterback boyfriend’s letter jacket in high school?

I don’t think anyone should “out” anyone but by the same token I think it would really help if some of the athletes, rappers, singers, actors, etc. who are in the public eye would just say they’re gay when they’re asked. And while we gays don’t all know one another personally (or intimately), we pretty much know when someone is gay. Adam Lambert from American Idol 8 is gay? – Don’t Get Me Started!

P.S. I wonder if it would be wrong for him to change the words a bit and sing, “I Kissed A Guy” by Katy Perry because although I don’t know if they were wearing cherry chapstick it does seem as they he enjoyed it.

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Just What DO You Do When Someone Chokes From Smelling Your Cologne? – Don’t Get Me Started!

I’m not a spray six thousand times before I leave the house nor am I one of those people who are constantly rubbing in cologne at wrist and neck points. I’m a spray each wrist, get dressed and then a spritz over the whole shebang and I’m out the door. This has worked well, usually only the people who go in for a hug or get close to me can smell me so I think I do a pretty good job when it comes to the cologne but recently the woman who helps me at Starbucks, stood up from doing something under the counter and went, “Whew <insert several sneezes here> wow, you smell nice but I don’t know something about it is making me sneeze. <more sneezing>” “Is it too much?” I asked. “No, no, just something about it <grimace>…” Just what DO you do when someone chokes from smelling your cologne? – Don’t Get Me Started!

If you’re anything like me, what this first thing in the morning encounter did was to make me completely paranoid. I kept trying to smell myself all day but knowing full well that you can’t really smell yourself unless you’re really stinky or something…I couldn’t smell anything. I would watch very closely everyone’s reaction to me as they got close. Could I see a nostril start to flare a bit at what was undoubtedly the black plague of colognes? It didn’t seem as though anyone was reacting to what I began to feel was a green cloud hovering about me like one of those bad breath commercials that you used to play on television. Or like the movie Ten Commandments when the plague to kill the first male born goes around the streets passing up any door that had lamb’s blood on it (where did the Jews ever come up with that one?) should I warn people to put some lamb’s blood above their lip like a milk mustache to deter the scent?

Let me say that I have always been hypersensitive to the “roar of the greasepaint” and most definitely the “smell of the crowd.” I remember that there was a woman we worked with at the theatre and her mother was one of those who were doused in what seemed like a combination of rose water and whatever is the sweetest and smelliest flower in the world. When she would hug you, you smelled like her for days. So you had to find creative ways around it. I remember once I sneezed, apologized and told her I thought I was getting sick – success, no hug. Then a couple of times I had to resort to the whole Oprah-I-don’t-want-to-hug-you-method where you clasp your fingers into theirs and maintain that proper dance position almost but more importantly you can keep them far enough away that it doesn’t get on you.

Lest you think women are the only ones, men are sometimes worse. I had a pal who, I don’t know but I can only imagine he not only bathed in Polo but drank it so that it would ensure it would come out of every pore on his body. It would be days later and I would be putting on my shoes or something and I’d be like, “Ugh, how did he get into my damn shoes???”

I don’t want to be one of those people. I don’t want to be the person who has the parade of cologne coming around the corner before I get there. I need no “coming attraction” no “scent sentries” going before me to lead the way. And what I really don’t need is for people to be choking on my damn cologne! More than embarrassing, it just seems ungayly and we all know that’s a deal breaker in my world. Just what DO you do when someone chokes from smelling your cologne? – Don’t Get Me Started!

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I Must Be A Big Disappointment To The Gay XXX Website Lookers And Clickers– Don’t Get Me Started!

Like any website (I’m guessing) I have a statistics page that I can go to and see how many people visit my site, if they came from another site to get to my site, which pages are the most popular and even information on the people who are stealing images and music from my site to use on theirs (even though in most cases I probably stole it from someone else in the first place, let’s face it even though I’m gay I don’t have a bunch of Paul Lynde and Liza Minnelli pictures just laying around my house). Look, I want as many people to visit my site and to visit as often as possible because let’s face it, it feeds my ego but sometimes I’m really amazed at the people who include me on their blog roll on their site. And so it came to pass that I was looking at my statistics (hoping desperately that perhaps someone famous had put a link to my site on theirs) when I saw the name of a site that caused me to clutch my imaginary pearls (no gasp gays, just a hand to the throat) www.dickcraver.com! (Okay, come back to my blog now….please) And I thought I must be a big disappointment to the gay XXX website lookers and clickers – Don’t Get Me Started!

Well there I was at my computer looking at this link that was basically screaming at me. I mean let’s face it, how many times do you get a link to a site that absolutely describes itself in two words (put together)? I certainly couldn’t do it when I came up with the idea to name my site Some Like It Scott so I did have to give them credit there. And so as I looked right, looked left, I proceeded with caution (just like the driving simulators had taught me in the tenth grade) I clicked. Well of course whether I “craved” it or not, I was almost immediately greeted by dicks of many sizes, shapes, nations and in many positions. It was like the UN of dicks or something! And as with most of these links, it sends you to the main page of the site so you really have to go rooting around to discover where the link is to your site or the picture that they’re using from your site, etc. I won’t fake surprise at the photos, let’s face it, I am gay after all and I happen to own my own dick (for over forty years now) but all I could think about was where the link to my site was and if anyone other than one person (who created the statistic on my page) ever clicked over to me. It didn’t take long to (you’ll pardon the expression) root through the dicks to find that I was included on their blog listing under “personal” blogs.

Well I must say that the first thing I felt was honored. I mean, if someone puts you on their site it means that at some point they must have visited and liked what they saw so it’s very flattering (to me anyway). But as I perused the other blogs in the listing and saw that most every other blog was also for those who craved to see dicks (albeit “Jimmy’s” or “Juan’s” or whomever’s) I suddenly felt dick envy…I guess that’s what you would call it. Well, maybe not envy as much as I worried that I would be a disappointment to “clickers.” Like a lover who comes to soon, I was afraid they would click over to me, see no dick and then roll their eyes in disgust immediately clicking on their “back” button to see if they could get back to something more entertaining with a little more…um, action, shall we say?

Then I felt like I owed the dickcraver crowd some sort of something. Should I solicit an ad from a gay website that showed men in undress in their ad? Should I put an underwear site on my site? (all ready have that actually but you have to click to see anything so it does me no good) I wondered if I needed to have a “Dear Dick Craver clicker” section that would feature some of my more shall we say, racier blogs?

Finally as my head was spinning to a crazy climax of thoughts and possibilities, I felt like I just needed to roll over and go to sleep. Let’s face it unless they’re looking for some clever repartee or some links to Broadway numbers performed at the Tony’s, I’m going to be a disappointment to the dickcraver.com crowd.

Who knows, maybe I’m underestimating the dickcravers of the world but I “hear tell” (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) that when boys visit these sites they want to do something else besides laugh while putting their hands into “jazz hands” position beside their head. (No, not THAT head and they have another position entirely for their hands but you understand, don’t you)

And as I sit here writing this (smiling I don’t mind telling you) I begin to think about all the things that people might “crave” from me. They might crave my sparkling personality at a party (always felt like I could be a professional party attendee), they might crave stealing something funny I’ve written or said (someone wrote to me and asked if they could use my line about the Octuplet Mom when I said, “her face had been tampered with more than Tylenol in the 80’s” – yes, you can use it too) or perhaps they’d crave one of my fabulous choreographed numbers I used to produce for shows. But the thing I’m absolutely sure about is that no one but no one is craving my dick, that deluded I’m not. Although it’s kind of nice to be on a naughty site, so thanks dickcraver.com and I just hope I can live up to your linkage in me. I must be a big disappointment to the gay XXX website lookers and clickers – Don’t Get Me Started!

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 Have Tips Lost All Meaning? – Don’t Get Me Started!

I live in Las Vegas, a town that was created completely on tips (or so it seems). I don’t care if you’re putting your car into one of the many casino valets or you’re at a club with a men’s room attendant it seems there are plenty of people who are looking for the tip. But as I go to Starbucks every morning and stare at that tip cube that is at each register, I begin to wonder have tips lost all meaning? – Don’t Get Me Started!

I’ve worked in the service industry (not in THAT service industry, calm down kids) so I completely get that servers are working mostly for that tip at the end of the meal. Which is why it always surprises me when you get bad service at a restaurant or a bar, I mean I remember doing everything but Simonizing people’s cars to get a good tip. How do these lousy servers make any money? I don’t get it. But my point is that if you get good or even great service, the server had something to do with it so I say, tip away. I’m a 20%er on the whole, sometimes even more if someone has given outstanding service so I don’t want anyone to think that my many blogs about being Jewish and stereotypical apply here. Although there is a story about my grandfather when he went with my parents to Hawaii and kept pocketing a portion of the money that they had left on the table as a tip with the remark, “I’m not putting them through college.”

So I get the whole tipping thing but what seems to me is that when you put money in one of the Starbucks cubes you’re really promoting socialism. (Okay not really but I’m sure some Republican can make an argument that leads to that conclusion.) I do have to say that if I’m tipping someone, I want to tip the person who gave the great service and not the entire collective that stands behind the counter (“collective” or “Borg” for those of us who have ever watched an episode of Star Trek Next Generation). I get it that maybe it takes a village to raise my coffee but honestly, if I could I’d be giving the tip to the Barista, not the person ringing up the sale or the person working drive through.

Much like giving is better than getting (for some - again kids, get your damn minds out of the gutter) there’s something you get out of saying, “No, that’s okay, we’re good” when a server comes back with your change. There’s something about having that $5 bill out when I pull up to a valet and am only going in for a few minutes and want them to leave the Mini Cooper out front instead of taking it to the lot. I like these feelings. It may not be solving world hunger or ridding the world of a disease but it’s helping someone who helped me pay their mortgage and in this day and age, what better gift is there to give, huh?

Now there are people who shouldn’t be tipped. I remember watching a Judge Judy episode where a store fired a Santa for putting out a tip jar. Oh Santa argued that his wife had gone home and created it and wrapped it in holiday wrap but the manager who hired him was offended. And honestly, should you be tipping Santa? Couldn’t that be considered a bribe in some circles? Just seems a bit unseemly to me.

Look I’m a caregiver by nature so I like tipping as a way to sort of thank someone for going above and beyond but I think I’m like most people in that I like doing things for others when they’re accepting of it but not expecting me to do something for them. What I mean is that if someone starts to take you for granted then you don’t really get that whole, “Holly Jolly” feeling about doing things for them, right? The same goes for tipping. The more tip jars I see go up with lacksidasical counter help the more it seems to me that these people expect to be tipped even when they do nothing that is really that extraordinary or worthy of a tip. And if anyone who does anything for you deserves to be tipped then where will it all end? Does this mean I should be tipping the cashier at the grocery store that slides my groceries over the scanner? Does this mean the dry cleaner counter person deserves a tip too? ARGHHHHH! Too much pressure, too much to think about I just know that I think I’m right, I think that tips have lost all meaning. – Don’t Get Me Started!

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