I’ve Been Sprayed! – Don’t Get Me Started!

I don’t know that you’ve ever experienced these devices but because I worked for a restaurant company that had several US locations, I know about them oh too well. They are air fresheners for public restrooms that have censors on them. I’m not really sure if they go off at certain timed intervals or if they actually sense you’re there and then go off but today at the office building where I work I went into the public restroom and as I was washing my hands I was attacked! I’ve been sprayed! – Don’t Get Me Started!

There is no aromatherapy to these supposed air fresheners, they usually smell like either a pina colada that someone threw up or a pine tree that was rotten and is going through a “chipper.” They have an industrial “clean” smell that someone along the line thought was a good idea but I sure would like to meet the people who create these scents. No doubt they’re sitting around after a fast food lunch, someone farts and they’re like “Eureka! We’ll call it Mexican Fiesta Scent! Quick to the laboratory!”

Look, I get it that public restrooms are not the greatest smelling places in the world but I have to say that after my unfortunate incident with being sprayed I’m not sure the sensor activated air freshener is the best idea, especially with the shall we call them, fragrance choices? Who makes these things up anyway? I mean from Yankee Candle to the people who make the pine tree that hangs from your rear view mirror, are people actually paid as much as I think they are to create this stuff? I once put a “leather” air freshener in my car that almost killed me.

Truth be told, more than anything, I’m more than a little disappointed that I haven’t become a super hero or something. I mean, isn’t that how it works in the comic books, you get sprayed by some unknown chemical and suddenly your abs get flat and defined,  biceps begin bulging and you get a cape that can magically appear?” WHERE’S MY CAPE???? I’d even settle for just the great abs and biceps if truth be told. But alas, just like some girls are disappointed that there really is no Prince Charming, I too find myself bitter that when the time came and I was sprayed by chemicals that life was not the stuff the comic books promised. Drat! Thwap!

More importantly will I get cancer due to this spraying? Am I now sterile? (Perhaps that’s what’s been wrong with me after twenty years of trying with the same man and still never getting pregnant. Perhaps it’s the chemicals and not the lack of a uterus, who knew?) Is there someone I can sue so that I can manage to keep my Jew stereotype along with all of my other stereotypes flying through the air with Cirque du Soleil juggling precision?

Right now you’re probably wondering why you’re still reading this rant. You’re wondering with the economy and health crises around the world why oh why is he going on like this about that? Well, I’m going to tell you that you just don’t understand. You couldn’t unless you were in a small bathroom when suddenly from behind you a cloud comes in like you imagine floating over the Bermuda Triangle before it claims another victim and you find yourself choking, sputtering and cursing at the top of your lungs which are now filled with enough chemicals from the “crop dusting” to stave off any major boll weevil attack in the fields that are your nervous system, only to open the door to find that there were some elderly women listening to it all and seeing the cloud of smoke following you out of the bathroom like that green bad breath they used to show in the Listerine commercials except it’s seemingly coming out of your ass! Embarrassing? Not for me, I loved every minute of it because I knew that it was all going to make a great blog entry. As Yul Brynner said in “The Ten Commandments” “So let it be written so let it be done.” Just to someone else next time. I’ve been sprayed! – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Come On Fat People, How Is The Chicken Prepared? – Don’t Get Me Started!

Before you go all “Biggest Loser” on my ass, I want to say that I currently consider myself a fatty. That’s right, as a friend once used to call me when I would complain about my fattitude, “Scotty Boombalatty.” However I know that sitting at a desk for hours on end, stress, eating late at night, going home and laying on the couch until it’s time to lay in bed, lack of exercise, decent diet and a genetic predisposition to a pot belly are all the contributing factors. I also know that I could change my weight if I’d actually push the M&Ms away and get to the gym. My family is filled with overweight people so I don’t want to hear all the “you’re so insensitive” comments.  What gets me are the fat people who have trouble admitting that they’re overweight or act as if they’re trying to do something about it when they’re not. Come on fat people, how is the chicken prepared? – Don’t Get Me Started!

I think I’ve written before about someone in my life who acted as if they were eating only organic products, complete down to the “Nayonnaise” (a not so much mayonnaise substitute). It was always shocking to me when I would go into my jar of mayonnaise in the frige to find that while it looked like a full jar of mayonnaise to the untrained eye, yet what had happened was that the supposed nayonnaise eater was eating all my mayonnaise but would just ferret the inside out so that from the outside it looked like an entire jar of mayonnaise until you opened it up and looked inside. Time and time again I would scrape the sides of the jar for the thin coating of mayonnaise that created the façade of a full jar. We were invited to a wedding and on the reply card it asked if you wanted chicken or beef. Nayonnaise Nan wrote on the card, “How is the chicken being prepared?” Nayonnaise Nan was a good two hundred fifty pounds so did it really matter how the chicken was prepared?

Recently I came across another person like this, we were ordering lunch and while she was very particular about asking about every component that was listed as on the item, at the end of picking and choosing from the six or seven ingredients on the list to either be on the side or excluded from her meal due to the fact that they were deemed by her “unhealthy” or “fattening” she then added sour cream and queso cheese sauce. I assure you there are no allergies here, just a mental illness.

I think I know why these overweight people create this ruse that fools no one but themselves. I think they want to give the appearance that they’re trying to lose weight when in actuality they’re making it harder on themselves to lose any weight at all. Instead of making everyone (including themselves) crazy (if only from our eye rolling that gives us a headache) admitting you have a problem is the first step, not making everyone crazy when you order. It’s akin to the same mental illness of ordering a “super sized” meal with a Diet Coke. While I know some nutritionists say taking the smallest step can make a difference, I’ll bet that if they ate half the fries and had water instead of Diet Coke they’d be closer to making something happen.

In the case of Nayonnaise Nan I would find myself in her car only to discover that stuffed under my seat was not a flotation device but instead were bags from Dunkin’ Donuts and fast food places. Unless she was researching a different type of air bag system that only uses fast food bags, I think we had a closet eater. The same can be said for the other woman I described, she only eats about a third of what she orders and then throughout the afternoon you find anything that isn’t nailed down headed into her gullet.

Look I’m doing this for your own good. I’m a firm believer in the idea that you have to admit you have a problem before you can begin working on it. I know I have a problem and every time I try to tie my shoes my light headedness reminds me that I’ve eaten way too much in my lifetime. I have a cat that now rests his head on my stomach like a pillow, what am I a moron? I once wrote that all I wanted for my birthday was metabolism and I pretty much stand by it but instead of just talking about it and blogging about it, I’m going to do something revolutionary about it, I’m going to push the plate away and start going back to the gym. I want to believe that before I leave this planet I might actually have a waist size I feel good about. I want to feel I can accomplish what I set my mind to do. And I think I have a chance because I can admit my failings, the same cannot be said for quite a few, the Nayonnaise Nans of the world. And it makes me kind of sad and mad all at the same time. Come on fat people, how is the chicken prepared? – Don’t Get Me Started!

Swine Flu Mask Anyone? Maybe Michael Jackson Wasn’t So Crazy? – Don’t Get Me Started!

Does anyone really know where the Swine Flu came from or why it seems to rear its ugly head every few years? I certainly feel just awful for the people who are losing their lives (and their loved ones who have lost them) to something that seems to be as mysterious as a David Copperfield magic trick…or should I say, “Illusion?” The point is that no matter how you slice it, it’s a pretty scary thing this new flu that is deadly and can be passed around by simple human contact. And as I watch the news with all the reporters with their surgical masks pushed to one side of their necks (looking like they just helped delivered their wife’s baby or were painting a wall) I can’t help but wonder. Swine Flu mask anyone? Maybe Michael Jackson wasn’t so crazy? – Don’t Get Me Started!

For years now we’ve all seen the photos of Michael Jackson with that surgical mask on. I remember when I was working at a large arcade based business on The Strip, one day they radioed that Mr. Jackson would be coming in to check the place out. Sure enough, a couple of hours before we opened, there he was surrounded by body guards and as I looked closer he was wearing pajamas and walking through with his mask firmly in place. I rushed back to my computer to tell everyone that contrary to the popular song, “The Freaks Come Out At Night…they also came out during the day too!” I have to wonder why we think it’s crazy when Jackson wears a mask and yet Howie Mandel can barely put a fist up (instead of a handshake) because he’s so worried about germs and we find sympathy for him and think it’s sweet in his case.

Well like it or not, you can’t help but turn on the news to see the people of Mexico City and several here in our own United States with a mask on and who could blame them, right? I watched as they had the soccer teams play in the stadium in Mexico City with no fans allowed in. How strange it must have been for these world class players to be playing with no one there in person to watch them. And while that must be strange, stranger than that are the fact that they’re using infrared cameras in the airport to determine if people are sick. I guess if they have Swine Flu, they’ll have a fever and the cameras will let the officials know as the cameras read the people’s body temperatures or something. All too scary for me and it seems like something out of some futuristic movie or something.

More importantly people, I don’t think that the fact that these paper like masks go with simply everything. I think people need to be careful not to go with the whole rest of the look by wearing scrubs. We won’t know who just operated and who is just worried. I also don’t think you can do the whole head to toe fashionista bit and then add a mask. (Well maybe you could if you bedazzled the mask or something). Although I must say kudos to Sanjay Gupta for wearing a stunner of a green mask under his chin in a recent CNN appearance, it was more like teal and went great with his skin tone.

Look we’re living in some scary times. I don’t understand most of what’s going on between the financial collapse and now this whole flu thing but the one thing I can be assured of is that somewhere someone is going to blame this on the gays. It’s inevitable. I don’t know how many of you are aware that supposedly the gays caused 9/11, everything bad that has ever happened to any one, brought about the final days of the earth (which supposedly we are in at this very moment) and now no doubt the Swine Flu. So on behalf of all the gays I just want to say, “What are you fucking people nuts?” (No need to reply, that was rhetorical)

And while some may think that some of our stars of yesteryear are no longer relevant, Michael Jackson has stepped up to be the leader of the new order, the mask wearers. A man ahead of his time a man who perhaps knew more than any of us knew. Long before Swine Flu, long before its time, the man in the mirror knew something we all didn’t…I’m just not sure if it’s about wearing a mask or the fact that Diana was so dirty. Swine Flu mask anyone? Maybe Michael Jackson wasn’t so crazy? – Don’t Get Me Started!

Before You Commit Suicide Quitters, Read This! – Don’t Get Me Started!

Well “another one bites the dust” just may be the theme song for what’s happening around our country as of late with all of the suicides but I for one am completely disgusted by these quitters. What’s more I can’t believe these people who are killing their families first before taking their own lives. Ri-damn-diculous is what I like to say. If you want to take your own life that’s one thing but what are you King Tut that you need to take the family, servants and pets with you too? Before you commit suicide, quitters, read this! – Don’t Get Me Started!

Although some of the leading experts today tell us that we’re not in another “Great Depression” (I heard one analyst say, “It’s not like the Great Depression where stock brokers jumped out of windows!” Oh really?!?) I believe the current headlines (and self inflicted deaths) would indicate otherwise. Here’s the thing, after surviving my teenage years I decided that if I wasn’t going to be an angst ridden, teenage suicide statistic that I just needed to get on with things and try to live my life the best that I could.

I understand that some people have chemical imbalances but I’m not too sure that with the crap preservatives we put in our food and the many medications we’re all on every day (whether it be over the counter stuff or prescription) that our self-medicating ways aren’t contributing to those chemical imbalances in our systems causing the suicidal tendencies among other things. Maybe that’s it maybe as my grandmother used to put it, we’re just not in our “right mind.” I thank God that they didn’t have Ritalin when I was growing up because let me just tell you I was a major pain in the ass and if my parents could have used an excuse like ADD or some other sort of medical condition to “take the edge” off me, I’m sure they would have been crunching it up for me to snort so that it got into my system faster!

But there’s also a part of me that feels as though we’ve just gotten soft (more than just around our middles – and yes, I speak for myself here too) in this day and age when you can get hot, tasty popcorn delivered to you from the box on the wall in under three minutes, maybe just maybe we’ve allowed our need for ease and comfort to take over our lives so much that when things are a little tough we can’t cope. This would explain why the television show Survivor is probably still so popular, you have a bunch of couch jockeys lying there on their “kick out” barcaloungers in their BVDs eating their Big Macs saying, “Dude, I could totally do that…eat those bugs for food and live on an island.” When the fact is that if they could ever stop scratching their crotches long enough to actually get on the show they’d be trying to drown themselves within minutes of getting on the island.

Too many people seem “overwhelmed” by life. I get it, it’s not easy this whole life thing and no one gets out alive but come on kids, a little pulling yourself up by your boot straps seems to be in order here. And the one thing that I’ve learned is that if someone else is drowning either help them (if you’re qualified to do so) or get as far away from them as possible because they’re just going to bring you down with them. Start practicing by staying away from negative people in your life. You know the ones who have opinions about everyone and everything and basically just want to tear people down so that they feel better about themselves. Run do not walk away from these people. (And if you run quickly enough you’ll burn some calories too!)

I’m so sad that people want to take their own lives, honestly I am. There were two incidents recently at the same school where young boys (I think both were around eleven years old) who were bullied took their own lives. Is it wrong of me to feel worse for them than the greedy corrupt financial people who danced to the music but instead of paying the piper they decide to take their own life and/or the lives of their families? Look, as that famous philosopher, Baretta used to have sung about in his theme song, “Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time…yeah, yeah.” Not everything in life is easy and I’m a firm believer that the things most worth having in this life are the things that we work the hardest to obtain.

But there are still millions of people every day who are scammed with “get rich quick” schemes or feel the end justifies the means and are sorry they got caught but not sorry they stole. The old adages are all true, if it seems too good to be true, it IS too good to be true. But that won’t mean much to people who are thinking of taking the easy way out by killing themselves. No, I think they need some tough love. I think they need to think about the people who will have to clean up the mess they’ve made (both literally and figuratively) once they’ve killed themselves. There’s always some “next of kin” who ends up having to plan the funeral, pay for it, etc. and there’s always someone who has to try and get the blood stains out of the carpet. Maybe we’ve begun to rely too much on products that “scrub” our bathroom walls for us without us having to scrub. Maybe we’ve been teaching our kids that the people who work at McDonald’s will throw the trash away we leave on a dirty table when we should be teaching them how to clean up after themselves. Maybe we’ve created lazy kids who’ve grown into adulthood thinking other people (or products whether they be cleaning chemicals for walls or our minds) will clean up their messes for them and when no maid comes it’s simply too much for them.

I don’t know. I just know that I’ve seen a lot of people I’ve loved die in my lifetime. People who I’d give anything to have another day, hour or minute with who didn’t die by choice but from disease or senseless acts of others so when you feel that you can’t go on, know that you’re wrong. Know that you have a duty to yourself and the people who love you to get help and tough it out. No one likes a quitter and you’ll be pretty pissed off at yourself that you didn’t stick around for the nuclear holocaust that could be coming our way at any moment. Don’t you want to be here when we look to the sky and say, “Hey what’s that?” before the big flash of light kills us all in a mushroom cloud? Come on, you know you wanna. Before you commit suicide, quitters, read this! – Don’t Get Me Started!

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YOU Do Know He’s Gay, Right? – Don’t Get Me Started!

I had someone write in to me asking for my take on when someone that is describing someone else says, “YOU do know he’s gay, right?” The first thing I wondered was what exactly does the person writing in mean? You see, even though you can capitalize certain words to show emphasis, you really do miss a lot when you’re only reading someone and not having an actual conversation with them. I think she really meant, “You DO know that’s he’s gay, right?” That said, I’m very familiar with this topic so settle in for a tale, a tale from a fairy but not so much a fairy tale. YOU do know he’s gay, right? – Don’t Get Me Started!

The first thing that comes to mind is actually not about being gay. When I first met the father of a dear friend of mine and he found out that I was Jewish, he pulled a card out of his wallet and said, “Hey, I met this guy and he’s Jewish too, do you know him?” He honestly meant it in the nicest way possible but I know that some people would have found it offensive. As for my friend she was so busy trying to crawl under the carpet during the exchange that I don’t think she can even remember the rest of that day. He really believed that all Jews knew one another and I get asked a lot if someone is gay as if we gays all know one another too. I usually say that my membership list is at home and that I’ll check it and get back to them. And although some may see no similarities, I do. You see, I think we tend to stop ourselves from going for the obvious because it’s not the most politically correct thing to do. For example, if you’re describing someone of African American descent most likely the first thing you’re going to think to say is, “You know, the black guy.” But in this day and age people would have you believe this is a racist comment and unacceptable. But is it? And does it have anything to do with the way you say (or in my case at the moment, write) things? I honestly don’t know, I’m sure someone will write in to debate with me why I’m wrong so have at it.

When I was in grade school my grandmother lived with us. Every day I would come home from school and there she would be watching Mike Douglas and Dinah Shore. Whenever there was a male celebrity that was of a certain age and had never been married, she would say, “Johnny Mathis, now he’s in his thirties and he’s never been married. Do you think….” Her voice would trail off but we all knew what she meant. After all this was the late seventies and Stonewall had happened so everyone was aware of “the gays” as my grandmother would put it. She would say, “You know the gays, they’re everywhere.” Little did she know she was living with one or did she and that’s why she said it?

Here’s the deal, if I had my druthers I would probably not want someone to describe me to someone that didn’t know me, leading off with, “You do know he’s gay, right?” because frankly I think for a lot of people it still conjures up some Uncle Arthur from Bewitched stereotypical image. (And while I love Paul Lynde, the actor who played Uncle Arthur, it’s a sad story that he never felt as though he got the recognition he deserved as an actor and went to his grave professing he was not a homosexual because it absolutely would have killed his career in those days. He lived a tortured life because he couldn’t tell anyone that he was gay…or more to the point, he didn’t think he could) There is the other side of the coin too, you see, in this day and age Paul Lynde could have been gay AND had his career so perhaps we need to look at it as badge of honor that someone can say that about us and it not be a scandal that will kill our careers, home life, etc. Maybe just maybe we have to do what we’ve done for so long, take a negative and retool it in our heads making it a positive. As I walked the halls of my high school campus, I would hear the word, “FAG!” shouted at me more than a few times each day. I trained myself to look over my shoulder as if they had to have been talking about someone other than me. Maybe we need to be glad the description is “You do know he’s gay, right?” instead of “You do know he’s a fag right?” (Though I’m sure both are used) And I guess when it comes right down to it I’ve been called worse so being described as gay is not the worst thing in the world.

I question people who say they are “color blind” when they see people, to me seeing someone’s color, great ass, fashion sense (or lack thereof), etc. is part of celebrating our differences and who that person is, made up of their genetics and their environment to create the singular sensation that is them. If I worked out as much as I should I would only want people to say, “You know, that guy with the G-A-A-A-Y triple threat” (A term I created meaning Great Ass Arms and Abs Yea!) I know I tend to be judgmental and at times superficial when I see the people with the NASCAR shirts and mullet haircuts so I guess they’re entitled to do the same to me in return. And since we’re all a little judgmental I feel a little like ending this entry with what’s going through my head right now, Stockard Channing from Grease singing, “There are worse things I could do…” YOU do know he’s gay, right? – Don’t Get Me Started!

This one is for you Lifesrich!

What’s Wrong With Modern Day Pirates? – Don’t Get Me Started!

I don’t know about you but when I think about pirates all that comes to mind are Captain Hook and Johnny Depp so when all this talk of pirates began a few months ago I was more than a little confused. I thought that pirates had pretty much gone out of style. I didn’t know if it was because there were no more pieces of eight, the parrots started a union and finally bankrupted pirates having to pay for their health benefits or what but the more I hear about them the more I know exactly what’s wrong with modern day pirates – Don’t Get Me Started!              

I come from a long line of people who dress up for depression. My grandmother used to always say that it wasn’t the next door neighbor’s business to know if you didn’t have any money, you should always dress like you did (even if it meant being in debt, donating blood, or selling an organ). I guess I’m just an old fashioned gay who still believes in dressing for success and thinks that good manners are important. So when I look at these modern day pirates from Somali it’s just kind of hard to not want to scrub them down like Meryl Streep in Silkwood and give them some sort of extreme makeover.

First of all I know nothing about Somali or the culture. The closest I can get to it is that I know that’s where the model, Iman is from and she’s married to David Bowie. When I’ve seen Iman on television, she has always talked about how hunger is such a large issue in Somali so I guess if you want to look at the bright side of things, this would mean that the pirates would have nice thin waists which would make their shoulders look bigger in comparison, giving them that special “V” look that only male body builders and models seem to have in real life. So no bulky shoulder pads needed here. (So while I think that the shoulder pads are more comfortable for the parrots, for the aforementioned reasons I gave, I think that parrots are just passé when it comes to pirates so no shoulder pads).

The high boot is still simply a “must wear” for pirates. I think they make their legs look longer, they probably take the salt water better and let’s face it, whether it a cowboy or Prada one, everyone looks better in boots. The same thing goes with the lace up shirt. It has such a romantic feel to it that it’s a staple that should be in every pirate’s wardrobe. Pants should be worn tight I’m thinking, sort of like leggings. (Careful not to go with the whole overweight woman who wears them so tight that it allows her cottage cheese thighs to show through but thinks a large sweater will cover all her sins) This gives you stretch where you need it and you know when you’re swabbing the decks you don’t ever want to split your pants (especially with all those randy pirates around – this is the stuff gay fantasies are made of for some boys).  Finally let’s talk about the hat. Well, I think this is where you can show some real personal style. Whether it’s your typical Captain Hook hat with a plume or a baseball hat with a rhinestone skull and cross bones, a hat is a must to protect you from the elements and show everyone just who you are, be daring, be smart and above all tilt it to one side for a more debonair feel.

I know some of you are saying that the pirate issue is a serious one and we shouldn’t care what they’re wearing we should just be making sure that we have protection for our crews on the high seas. I don’t disagree with you but I can’t help myself, when you call them “pirates” I want some real piratey looking pirates, dammit. I remember years ago I was out at dinner with a friend in Arizona where I grew up. I was wearing black 501 jeans tucked into black boots, a black shirt and for some reason (I’m sure I don’t know why) I had a large silver hoop earring in my ear. (I was more the subtle diamond stud type back in the day) So all of a sudden in a flurry comes a girl (now a woman) I hadn’t seen since high school. She was talking to me and just drinking my all black (including my dyed hair) look in and then went back to her table. She stared at me the rest of the night. I said to my friend, “Great I haven’t seen her in a hundred years and just my luck, when she sees me I look like a gay pirate!” The point is that if I can do it so can they. These pirates just aren’t pirates anymore in my book, they’re just extortionists and since no one really knows what an extortionist looks like I think we should use that term instead of “pirate” unless of course they start dressing the part. What’s wrong with modern day pirates? – Don’t Get Me Started!              

Perez Hilton, Miss USA California, Gay Marriage, Enough! – Don’t Get Me Started!

So apparently during the Miss USA Pageant this past weekend, Perez Hilton was one of the judges and his question to Miss California was about gay marriage. Miss California, looking as flustered as any of the pageant girls look when they get a difficult question, did her best to sound somewhat intelligent before saying that “in her country, in her family,” she believed marriage was between a man and a woman. As the audience supposedly booed her (when you watch it on YouTube it sounds like a mix of clapping and booing) apparently Perez said, “Bitch” under his breath which was carried to the airwaves because his mic was still on. Perez Hilton, Miss USA California, Gay Marriage, Enough! – Don’t Get Me Started!

Okay let me begin by saying that I’m a snob when it comes to pageants. I’m a Miss America kind of gay where there’s some talent involved and some platforms (not just the heels here but you know stuff like working with underprivileged kids, AIDs, etc.). Miss USA is a pageant bought by Donald Trump that back in the day was the pageant for the girls who would take a roll in the hay with the judges not be the role models that Miss Americas are supposed to be. In fact it was the pageant you participated in if you weren’t good enough to be in Miss America. So I wasn’t watching the bikini fest that is Miss USA this past weekend. I didn’t see it in live time but I watched it on YouTube and here’s the deal. I don’t see anything wrong with Miss California’s answer. (As if I don’t worry enough about my gay card be revoked, right?!? The gay mafia will definitely be coming after me on this one.)

But you see, the reason I don’t see anything wrong with Miss California’s opinion is that was exactly what it was, one woman’s opinion and the last time I checked, in America, you’re allowed to say whatever you want. Is it going to change my life that Miss California USA is against same sex couples being allowed to marry? No. Is it better for her to say how she really feels or better for her to lie? (Like the Mormons who still haven’t admitted just how much of their congregants’ tithed money went to pass Proposition 8 in California) I’d prefer the truth and that’s what she gave us.

Meanwhile, Perez Hilton who came to fame by outing celebrities and then drawing cum shots on the faces of celebrities on his website is losing weight, giving up the freakish dyed hair in order to try and restart his original goal which was to be an actor. Well, good luck Mr. Perez, even if you lost a lot more weight the only thing I see you being cast as is an extra in a Flintstones movie with those Neanderthal features of yours. That said, a lot of people love him and good for him that he’s managed to become so mainstream.

Here’s the deal, I don’t want to leave my rights to Miss California USA or Perez Hilton if you don’t mind. As I’ve stated before, we need to get behind the idea that “marriage” is religious and in order to have the benefits under the laws of the United States (where all men are supposed to be created equal and there’s supposed to be a separation of church and state) a union between two consenting adults should be a “civil marriage” or be a “civil union” for both hetero and homosexual couples. What a lot of people don’t realize is that there are also millions of senior citizens (gay and straight) cohabitating who don’t want to give up their social security benefits but would like a tax break so they could use the whole civil marriage thing too as long as it comes with all the legal benefits. My brother says we need to get rid of the word “marriage” and let that word only be used in the context of religious ceremonies, I don’t disagree but what I do disagree with is everyone getting their bikini bottoms up their bum because some Miss USA contestant said what she believes. For too long we’ve all be so “sensitive” that we’ve forgotten that a good debate is one of the luxuries our country affords us.

All ready there are people saying that Hilton had no right to ask the question and others are saying that Miss California will certainly get her place in heaven next to Sarah Palin for her answer. I don’t know about you but I was taught that actions speak louder than words, when all of the media outlets that are vilifying the poor pageant contestant start putting their billions of dollars towards equal rights then they can say whatever the hell they want. In the meantime, give the pageant girl a break, remember we live in America and if you’re anything like me, you’re still saying, Perez Hilton, Miss USA California, Gay Marriage, Enough! – Don’t Get Me Started!

The Road To Depression Is Paved With Good Intentions – Don’t Get Me Started!

Well it happened again. The weekend had such great promise. The weather was going to be great and I was going to accomplish so much. I was going to change the clothes in the closet to the appropriate season, I was going to get outside and just be outside in the glorious weather, I was going to add a couple of chapters to that book I’m writing, the list goes on and on. What got done you ask? Absolutely nothing. So as Sunday evening approached and the work week ahead of me loomed I could only become more and more depressed that I had accomplished none of the things that seemed so possible a mere forty eight hours prior. That’s when it hit me, it isn’t the road to hell that’s paved with good intentions, the road to depression is paved with good intentions – Don’t Get Me Started!

When I was doing theatre full time (for eleven years) I had my days to sleep late, have lunch with friends, choreograph a number for the next show or whatever. My time was really more my own than I realized at the time. That was before I joined the corporate America culture where you’re in an office Monday through Friday from 8am until 5pm or 6pm and need to be “available” by cell phone, email, etc. 24/7. Back when I was doing theatre I didn’t even have a cell phone so there was no sitting at lunch with someone and when I felt something vibrate between my legs I would have to fight to stay listening to the person telling me all about their most recent heartbreak when what I really wanted to do was look at the phone that was in my crotch to see who was emailing or texting me. No, if my crotch was vibrating back then it was for a different and much better reason.

The other thing that happened was that when I was doing theatre I had Mondays and Tuesdays off so going to any store or whatever was great because everyone else was working. Now I have try to time things perfectly so that I’m at the least crowded time to get my car washed on a Saturday morning, to go to Wal-Mart before it’s a complete zoo, etc.

All of the above I think makes me less motivated to do anything on the weekends. Now I have a therapist friend who tells me that I’m just “recharging” from a stressful week so that’s the reason for lying on the couch all weekend watching Cary Grant movies wishing I was as handsome, funny and famous as he was instead of accomplishing anything but I really think that I’ve reached that point that most electronics get to where they can only be charged so much anymore. Have you ever had a cell phone or other electronic device that when you first get it you charge the battery and it lasts for something like twenty hours but after a year of charging it you discover that you’re charging it for the same time that you always have but instead of getting twenty hours it only gives you twenty minutes or battery life? That’s where I am, no matter how much sleeping or whatever I don’t do on the weekends so that I can “recharge” my battery by Monday at 10am I’m feeling like it’s Friday at 6pm and I need another weekend. Perhaps this is what the celebrities talk about as complete exhaustion?

But I refuse to take this without kvetching or fixing it. I’m someone who has always been known as “Mr. Energy” when I choreographed at Disneyland they nicknamed me “Peter Pan” (and not just because I had some lost boys following me and looked great in tights). So today I begin anew. Today I begin to change the battery that is inside me to one that runs a little “greener” – that’s right, it’s healthier eating for me and a commitment to not lay on the couch every night when I get home but to do some sort of exercise. I firmly believe that my lack of doing things is making me feel worse. When you have nothing to focus on but everything you haven’t accomplished then Satan’s helper, “Depression” is waiting around every corner for you. So the next time someone tells you about hell and the road to it, I ask you to think about all those things on all those lists (in your head and written down) that you have yet to accomplish and tell yourself that hell is going to be like a nice sauna compared to what you’ve created for yourself mentally because you haven’t accomplished anything on your list. For me I know I have to get rid of this gut and start refueling myself properly (translation – eating properly) so that when the next weekend comes I’ll feel like getting some of that stuff knocked off my list but for you it may be something different. Whatever it is, don’t worry about some mysterious hell that no one knows for sure what it’s going to be like, worry about the hell you create in your own mind and realize that the road to depression is paved with good intentions – Don’t Get Me Started!

Maybe Madonna Can Adopt Heidi Klum’s Latest Baby – Don’t Get Me Started!

I don’t know what Heidi Klum is trying to prove here, either she wants to be Mia Farrow (except without adopting), she wants to be an old woman who lives in a shoe or she’s trying to get on TLC with a reality show. It was announced yesterday that Heidi Klum is expecting her fourth child. I haven’t seen any of the other three but with Heidi Klum and Seal for parents my bet is that they’re all gorgeous. But how many children is too many? (Don’t answer Mormons) And then my twisted mind began twisting and I thought maybe Madonna can adopt Heidi Klum’s latest baby – Don’t Get Me Started!

With the recent news that Madonna is unsuccessfully (at the moment) trying to adopt another baby from a foreign land the Klum/Seal baby may be just the ticket. Great legs and a great voice it’ll probably look enough like Madonna or not enough like Madonna to meet her requirements.

I’m from a family of four, my parents (who are still married) and my brother. I can’t imagine growing up in any of the seventeen thousand child homes they show on reality shows (nor do I think the Octomom should get her own show but that’s another blog for another day). I know in that one really nutty family (the Duggers I think they’re name is – can’t watch too much it makes me nervous with all of their painted on grins, Amish wear and as many children as there are grains of sand) that they actually give a new baby an older “buddy” (one of their older siblings) to look after them. I think the buddy system is a good idea (I remember never getting lost when I was in fourth grade and went on field trips) but a family that has to use a “buddy” system just to keep track of all of their children? Well that just seems wrong to me. If you have so many that you can’t keep track of all of them wouldn’t you stop having them once you started losing the first one? Isn’t that a sign from say, oh I don’t know, God that it’s time to stop and start collecting stamps which can also be put in an album but don’t have to be fed? I know some people tell me the reason gays shouldn’t be allowed to marry is because they can’t procreate well seems to me that some of these couples are doing enough procreating for all of us. The fact that they seem as though they’d be really dull in bed has nothing to do with the fact that they can make babies apparently.

And now we’re back to Heidi Klum, she must be the most fertile woman on the planet at this point or else Seal’s sperm is so supersonic that his sperm wears tights and a cape! The good news is that they can afford the kids or should I say can afford to take care of them. And I have to say that I not only love me some Heidi Klum on Project Runway but if you had a chance to see her on that show, “I Get That A Lot” (http://www.cbs.com/specials/i_get_that_a_lot/) she was freaking hilarious.

So wait, Heidi Klum, the Victoria Secret model who is not only gorgeous but smart enough to come up with the idea for Project Runway is funny too? And her babies’ Daddy is a guy who is model worthy himself, has an amazing voice and according to her, his manhood was the first thing she noticed so he’s the envy of every man in America (and beyond) for not only his wife but his penis size? Not to mention they’re an interracial couple too. Okay, these are officially the only two people in the United States who are allowed to have babies. But if they should decide they have too many, maybe Madonna can adopt Heidi Klum’s latest baby – Don’t Get Me Started!

He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother – Don’t Get Me Started!

My brother is twenty-two months older than me. When he was a baby, they would sit him up in the corner of the sofa and he would stay there for hours without making a noise. When I was a baby I was up all night often screaming at the top of my lungs for attention. The year my brother was third in the state for mathematics I failed geometry. To say we’re opposites is an understatement. He lives in California and I live in Nevada and although it’s close we only see one another a few times a year. I saw him last night and noticed that we both have received the family gift that our grandfather passed down to our father and now to us, a rather large pot belly. But I don’t see that when I look at him, I see the same guy who I’ve looked up to for all these years and loved. He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother – Don’t Get Me Started!

I know that some people have problems relating or even dealing with their siblings, I’ve just never been one of them. I’m sure we had the typical fights as kids but honestly since our interests were so diverse I think it just made it easier to like one another without all the typical competitiveness. I do remember once when we were younger that we had a fight. One of us (probably me) said, “I hate you.” My father sat us both down on one of our beds and said, “Look, it’s okay to be mad at one another but I never want to hear you say you hate one another. One day your mother and I will be gone and the only person you’ll have to turn to will be one another.” I was about eight but I never said I hated my brother again and I remember that talk like it was yesterday.

The thing is that when I see my brother today, even though at this point in our lives we’ve lived apart more years than we ever lived together, I still get excited and see him as my big brother. I don’t see our gray hair or our bellies, I see us as we were in a photo from when he was 7 and I was 5, all dressed up with a fake wall in front of us that we’re leaning on at the photographer’s studio where the shot was taken. No one can make me laugh like he does and no one laughs at my jokes like he does.

Last night as we were sitting at dinner he “bonked” me in the head with his hand. We could have been eight or in our forties (which we are) but the thing is that it was perfectly natural. It felt right, it felt like home. I’m so thankful that although we talk about adult things and we often disagree with some of our political stuff, a good bonk in the head can bring us right back to where we were and are, two brothers who do respect each other but more importantly, love one another.

It’s not always perfect and it’s not always easy now that he’s married with kids and I have a spouse but I’ll take any of the imperfections or hassles to try to please the group when I can sit next to him at dinner and laugh. It was our parents’ anniversary and so his family wasn’t there so it wasn’t perfect but it was pretty close and it let me wish I had a lot more time with him.

I don’t know what’s ahead for any of us but I do know that sometimes being a co-dependent Jewish family is a good thing. I know I can go to my parents or brother with anything and they’ll just love me (and tell me when I’m wrong). So while we may not look like those boys (though my Dad still calls us “the boys”) on the old sepia tone photo, there’s a lens on my eyes that allows me to always see us that way and at the same time see the men we’ve become. Weight shmeight, he ain’t heavy, he’s my brother – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Okay Nevada Governor Gibbons – You Should Be The Last Person Pontificating About Gay Or Straight Marriage! – Don’t Get Me Started!

Apparently Governor Gibbons of Nevada feels he knows what’s right when it comes to marriage. Never mind that he’s currently involved in a very public “he cheated on her” divorce from his current wife. He has now “thrown down the gauntlet on domestic partner legislation” currently before the state Senate saying he’ll veto the bill if it reaches his desk. Okay Nevada Governor Gibbons – you should be the last person pontificating about marriage gay or straight! – Don’t Get Me Started!

In a quote from the local paper, the Vegas Las Review-Journal, Gibbons is quoted as saying about the domestic partner legislation “I just don’t believe in it.” Saying he’s going along with the voters. How about going along with some all men are created equal under the law? Look the bill is not going to allow same sex partners to marry (as that has all ready been barred under Nevada law) the bill would give the “same rights, protections, benefits, responsibilities, obligations and duties” as traditionally married couples and be subject to the same divorce laws, such as those community property. (In other words, marriage) Well, I’ve been with the same man for over twenty years in a monogamous relationship and if that’s not marriage I don’t know what is. And who the hell is Gibbons to tell anyone about marriage when he’s been married twice?

Senator David Parks wrote the bill. This is probably one of the only times you’ll see him listed that way. Why? Because Parks is always listed as “the openly gay senator from Las Vegas” whenever anyone puts anything in print about this bill or him. Don’t tell me that it helps the cause to have the one openly gay senator writing this bill. Excuse me but where are all the people who know better than to allow their religious beliefs interfere with the laws of this country both straight and gay? I hate to say it but couldn’t Parks find a “beard” or co-sponsor of the bill who was straight? Go ahead, accuse me of reverse bias but I have to tell you that having straight couples say they won’t get married until homosexual ones can give us a great boost for our cause in the eyes of the straightees who are clinging to their marriage like the tin cans to the back of their “Just Married” car. (Those tin cans make a lot of noise but never manage to hold on forever – just like those fighting against homosexuals having the same rights as straights when it comes to marriage – lots of noise, won’t last forever.)

I want to do the right thing, sign the petitions from the Human Rights Campaign, send emails in support of the bill, etc. but all the while I just have this nausea in the pit of my stomach. Without additional support from other legislators I don’t think this bill has a chance. Nevada is supposedly “Sin City” but apparently gays aren’t sinful which I guess is good news for us. Oh don’t get me wrong, there are major resorts who advertise in every gay magazine with ads that promote the image that Vegas welcomes gays with open arms and glow sticks. Sure, they want our disposable income but every time a bill like this gets defeated it lets those of us who live here know that they don’t mind us coming to visit (and leaving money behind) but they don’t want us to live here. And if we do live here then we have to accept the fact that we’re second class citizens. If you’re straight and reading this I ask you to stop one moment and think about the fact that today you could claim your spouse on your income tax return and reap the benefits under the law of the United States Constitution that we gays are not afforded federally. That’s a drop in the bucket as to the rights we don’t have and you do.

Look, I don’t want to be a whiny gay playing the victim here but I also can’t sit by idly as Governors such as Jim Gibbons are allowed to spew their injustice and hate from the beds of their mistresses. Governor heal thyself and in the meantime watch how quickly you veto the bill as it comes across your desk. People love to propagate the image that gays are effeminate and silly and we allow it to a certain extent because just like women who flirt to get free drinks, if we think it’s going to get us the desired outcome (like distract someone from beating us to death) we’re willing to play along. Well don’t look for any limp wristed parade here against you Gibbons, look for gays and straights alike to fight you in the courts against your hatred. Besides if I were you I would be more focused on the non-lies that your soon to be ex-wife Dawn is going to tell in the courts about your inability to be worthy of marriage yourself. And maybe they’ll even get that cocktail waitress you followed out to the parking garage to fondle on the stand too. And they say we gays are the ones who only think about sex! Okay Nevada Governor Gibbons – you should be the last person pontificating about marriage gay or straight! – Don’t Get Me Started!

If Kal Penn Can Work For Obama So Can I! – Don’t Get Me Started!

So the recent news that “actor” (you’ll notice I put it in quotes because I’m not sure how great an actor Kal Penn is but that shouldn’t stop him from getting a stint on The Actors’ Studio with James Lipton) is giving up his acting career to work for President Obama in the what seems like a made up department of The Office of Public Liaison & Intergovernmental Affairs office. I don’t know exactly what he’s going to be doing but I’m sure I could do it just as well. If Kal Penn can work for Obama so can I! – Don’t Get Me Started!

Okay, you’ll forgive me for sounding like a Republican for a moment but with all the people out of work right now, shouldn’t Obama be hiring the unemployed instead of actors from Hollywood who want to dabble in public service? I get that Kal Penn is going to apparently take a rather large pay cut from his Hollywood gigs but he’s about the only one who can afford to do that at the moment. I’m sure he’s still getting residuals from those Harold and Kumar movies and although his character committed suicide on the television show “House” last week I’m sure when they make this season available on DVD he’ll get a nice huge chunk of money for that too.

The other side of that is that perhaps he’ll be really good at this job. Who knows what this job is but perhaps his comedic as well as acting experience will pay off as he liaisons and intergovernmentals himself through life at the White House. One thing’s for sure, most likely he won’t have to walk the new Presidential pooch, which I suppose is something.

And maybe that’s what Obama should do; fill his open positions with actors who have been overpaid so they can afford to work for less. Look at our congressmen (and women) who have great health benefits, make huge salaries and yet they talk about “representing” the people from their districts that don’t have a dime to rub together and are homeless. Maybe we need some rich people in there who make small salaries because they really do just want to serve their country and don’t need the money. Just a thought.

Perhaps I’ve gotten too immersed into the culture of the reality television that I watch. When you see someone on a reality show you’re almost always thinking, “Gee, I could do that. Why doesn’t someone pay me to sit in a house with fourteen strangers and cause a bunch of drama?” I think that’s the same reason people without any talent continue to audition for shows like American Idol. There’s a whole “what’s so special about them” feeling that I don’t think we used to have about actors, celebrities, etc. Call me gayer than gay but I know why Judy Garland was a star, Miley Cyrus not so much.

Look, I wish Kal Penn all the luck in the world and I’m sure he could care less what I think about his new chapter in his life as a political figure. Frankly I think he’ll do better than Joaquin Phoenix will do with his hip hop career. And there’s a part of me that likes the White House starting to resemble the show the West Wing. I always thought the writing was great on that show and it actually taught me everything I know about politics. (Be afraid, be very afraid….but I don’t think I’m alone here) So congrats Kal Penn and maybe there should be more there with you. I’d like to see Julia Roberts as the head of something in the White House ‘cause she’s pretty and I like her laugh. I’m sure there’s some position in the Department of Toothy Smiles for her. And Mickey Rourke should have a job in the Department of the Interior (because his exterior has been plastic surgeried beyond recognition). Let’s go ahead and cast the rest of the jobs in the Obama administration like we would a television show, with celebs that don’t need the money. This way we save money on their salaries, not having to pay money to see their bad movies and it makes the White House just more attractive on the whole. Still, there’s a part of me that feels if Kal Penn can work for Obama so can I! – Don’t Get Me Started!

“There Are Bigger Issues Than Gay Marriage” They Just Don’t Get It – Don’t Get Me Started!

Twice last week I heard people say that there are bigger things to worry about than gay marriage and boy is it getting on my nerves. Once it was the Governor of Vermont after his veto was vetoed by lawmakers there opening the city hall registrar’s office to gays to get married and the other I saw posted on gayagenda.com as spoken by Pastor Rick Warren on an interview with Larry King. “There are bigger issues than gay marriage” they just don’t get it – Don’t Get Me Started!

While Vermont Governor, Jim Douglas chose the economy as a “more important thing to focus on” and stated that valuable time was wasted on the gay marriage issue when there are more pressing matters, Pastor Warren decided to bring up Rwanda as a “bigger fish to fry” than gay marriage. I agree with both of these men, that there is so much more out there that is worth the time of legislatures and our government but the problem is that this thought process is also being used to not do anything about our rights right here in the good ol’ U-S of A! And if want my opinion, I think both men are drinking a healthy glass full of sour grapes wine because when you lose on an issue publically, it always seems as though these holier than thou types always “had bigger things to handle”, are “agreeing to disagree” or have to get to an actual church fish fry.

Supposedly the White House doesn’t have time to repeal “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” for military personnel. Hmmmm…okay, what exactly is it going to take to just say, “Um, you know that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell thing? It doesn’t make any sense and doesn’t exist anymore.” What possible analysis needs to be done in order to bring this to fruition that hasn’t all ready been done by everyone from Kinsey to ex-commanders? I’m sure I don’t know, but apparently that’s on a “back burner.” (I’ll leave the double entedre for you more clever types.)

The one thing that the White House has done for us is that politicians are now a little more careful about how they phrase things. There was a time when the only way to get elected was to get the people with the fishes on their car to drive in a caravan to the voting booths. The candidates would put their hand up to God and praise Jesus all to get elected but with the new administration it seems that Obama may be a little Moses-riffic by parting the water that was the holy water (or the Kool Aid ala Jim Jones) politicians used to use to sweep elections. Governor Douglas said something about how it doesn’t go along with his personal faith but that he wouldn’t try to fight it in the interest of “bigger things.” That’s a new one. When Bush was in the White House trying to get the “Defense Of Marriage Act” passed (which by the way, he was spending oodles of money and time on…hmmm…seems as though there was plenty of time to do that, kill the economy and line the pockets of his father’s oil buddy cronies all at the same time) politicians continually stepped into the public spotlight saying they were with the Prez on the issue…now, not so much. I have a feeling it’s because as much as the Rush Limbaughs of life hate it, religion is finally being exorcised from the laws of this country. And to that I say, “Amen.”

I know I’m not a patient person. I hate waiting three minutes for popcorn to pop in a microwave and tend to forget when I used to get Carpal Tunnel shaking “Jiffy Pop” over the burner for what seemed like hours so I know many will tell me to be a good little gay and sit patiently waiting for my rights to begin to take effect. I’m willing to wait but I don’t want to be told that my rights as a human being in a country that is supposed to be known for that freedom are not a “big enough issue.” You try paying double the taxes, not being allowed into hospital rooms of a sick spouse, and all the other rights that civil marriage gives heterosexuals and then tell me how there are bigger things to worry about than the human rights in our own country. You can keep your church, shoes and rice because as big of an industry and as important as those are to a bride they don’t even compare to the person who right now is sitting in a hospital somewhere being told that they can’t make decisions for their partner of thirty years who is laying in a hospital bed because they’re not the “next of kin.” “There are bigger issues than gay marriage” they just don’t get it – Don’t Get Me Started!

P.S. Apparently Pastor Warren is exhausted...or afraid of George Stephanopoulos...you decide:
http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2009/04/13/is-rick-warren-scared-of-george-stephanopoulos/?xid=rss-topstories

My Iphone And My Gay Horoscope – Don’t Get Me Started!

Ever since I got my iPhone I have been kvetching about it. As I’ve said hundreds of times before, I love the iPhone for everything except the phone. Oh yeah, and the camera. The phone itself is awful and when I first got it, it used to drop more calls than gay wrestlers drop opponents in the ring and in bed. After several software updates I do not get the telltale beeping noise telling me I’ve lost a call and I won’t be able to call back my mother for at least three minutes because she still thinks she’s still talking to me as much as I did when I first got the phone but honestly, after living with the phone for over six months now, I have to say that the best thing about the iPhone are the applications you can load onto it. Where else could you turn but to the Magic 8 Ball when you’re trying to make an important decision? Beside the 8 Ball, one of my fave applications is the horoscope application. Well recently the horoscope application got an update too. Now it includes important things like your typical daily horoscope, your work horoscope, your pet’s horoscope and then much to my surprise your gay horoscope. My iPhone and my gay horoscope – Don’t Get Me Started!

I have to admit that the first time I pressed my index finger to the gay horoscope I felt a little naughty. I mean, what would the gay seers see for me? I thought it might talk of things like the fact that I would indeed be getting that cute sweater I saw (even if I was buying it for myself) or that no really my hair looked good today, you know, something like that but nothing prepared me for what I saw and how, dare I use the word, “offended” I got. “Your mind will be cloudy and decisions hard to make today. Perhaps staying up too late has caught up to you again. So get some early shuteye tonight and ignore the call of the chat rooms, web sites and 1-800-HOT-GUYS love lines.” What the hell is this? My how unimaginatively stereotypically ridiculously awful! Meanwhile tomorrow what I have to look forward to is more of looking tired but the good news is that the guys at the office will notice I got up early to work out. What the hell? Oh, so that one workout is suddenly going to flatten my abs when it’s taken me months and months of eating improperly and limiting my exercise to opening the refrigerator door (feel the burn in the triceps) to create the massive lump of fatness around my middle that I’m now convinced is cancer and has nothing to do with me and my lack of trying in earnest to get rid of my gut?

While some people get offended when gays are reduced to lisping queens I tend to get more offended when we’re reduced to the sex crazed constant sex monster image that people try to paint us out to be. I think these stereotypes are more harmful. Queens tend to make everyone laugh and laugh at themselves while the insidious sex crazed monster gay stereotype continues to create fear among Southern (mostly white) Americans that we gays only want into the military so that we can get into their eighteen year old soldier’s foxhole.

I don’t spend my time in the locker room of the gym (well let’s face it, I don’t spend too much time at the gym doing all that much presently) hoping to get a glimpse of some naked guys, I leave that for the closeted straight guys. Frankly, most of the time when I’m looking at a guy’s ass it’s too see the waist size listed on the back of his Levi’s and reminisce when my waist was that size. I know I’m supposed to be having penis envy but most of the time anymore it’s just waistline envy or thinking if I only looked like this guy or had their G-A-A-A-Y Triple Threat (Great Abs Ass and Arms), I might have had a chance at a career in the show biz.

I’m really okay with people thinking I’m the next Paul Lynde. I’m not okay with people thinking I’m the next Jeffrey Dahmer. So while I know some gays may be getting their life predictions from the iPhone’s gay horoscopes, I think I’ll stick to the ones that are much more serious and real, you know, the work, travel, beauty and pet horoscopes! My iPhone and my gay horoscope – Don’t Get Me Started!

Notes My Dry Cleaner Leaves Me – Don’t Get Me Started!

I’ve had a rocky relationship with my dry cleaner (watch the videos here http://hubpages.com/hub/Why_I_Broke_Up_With_My_Dry_Cleaner and http://hubpages.com/hub/Forty-Something-Gay--ep17-To-Forgive-Your-Dry-Cleaner-Is-Divine) that’s right, I’ve gone from break up to make up with them but this morning when I went to put on one of my shirts I recently got back I found a note on the garment. And I started thinking about notes my dry cleaner leaves me – Don’t Get Me Started!

Normally the note I get on my clothes is the one you hate to see. It’s sort of pinkish in color, through one of the button holes and has a stick figure of a balding man who has so much perspiration that you can see it above and to the side of his head. It says something like, “We tried and tried but we couldn’t remove the stain.” Now let me say right here and now I think people are nasty. Even if you made me the next George Jefferson on television I would have to change the profession because I’ve seen all the 20/20 reports where they “wand” a comforter from a hotel and all the germs are crawling around on it like some 7,000 kids in a playground. No thank you, I don’t want to be the one who finally gets the stain off Monica’s dress and I just couldn’t imagine being intimate with people’s funk.

When I see the whole “stain” note from the dry cleaner I’m usually not all that surprised although I must say that there have been more than a couple of times when the shirt (or article of clothing) went in free of stains but came back with one or two and the stick figure bald guy just as upset on the note as I was…well, almost. If the stain didn’t come from me, I figure it’s best that I not know how it got there. Maybe it just got dragged behind the dry cleaning truck or maybe someone was eating a greasy burger at the dry cleaners, had no napkin and decided to use my shirt. I can’t be sure however I am sure that the shirt always ends up right in the trash. Too many possibilities and all of them give me the heebie jeebies!

Notes are a funny thing, aren’t they? I mean, think about the fortunes in fortune cookies. I always think that I’m really going to find the one saying, “Help, I’m being held at the Chinese fortune cookie factory!” or the notes that the Starbucks gang sometimes write on the side of my cup. These are all funny or sweet or just notes but when it’s on a designer shirt wrapped in a Valentino plastic coffin (not the designer Valentino, the famous silent film star who had himself buried with a window in the coffin so that all could see his beauty after his death…while I know people swooned to see his face through the porthole on the coffin, I can imagine his view was not as pretty). I can spot the “we fucked up your shit” note immediately, even through the glare of the plastic wrap.

So today when I went to take out a shirt from my closet that was newly back from the dry cleaner I was surprised to see a note I’d never seen before. I can’t remember when I got this shirt. I know it’s been years that I’ve had it. I can’t even remember the designer as there’s no label on the shirt due to its shall we say, uniqueness? You see the shirt is completely reversible. It has two sets of buttons and depending upon the way you press it, you either have a blue striped shirt or a pink one. I called it my “travel” shirt because when I used to travel extensively for business you could get two days out of the one shirt by simply turning it inside out and pressing it. For all of my loving them I have to say that apparently I was the only one because I haven’t seen them since. But anyway, when I looked at the note hanging out of the last button hole on the shirt I saw a handwritten note that said, “reversible?????” It seemed incredulous and rhetorical all at the same time, I loved it. It’s one of the better notes I’ve ever received from them and made me feel a little like someone who would go on What’s My Line when the celebrity panel had to wear blindfolds. I feel as though I stumped Kitty Carlisle and that’s a good feeling!

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Thanks Iowa, Now I Get It…CIVIL Marriage! – Don’t Get Me Started!

So Iowa knocked down the ban against homosexuals marrying finding it unconstitutional. Yea Iowa and yea homosexuals but what got me even more than the fact that Iowa did what that liberal Hollywood loving state couldn’t, was the Iowa justices using the term that even I had struggled to figure out for so long, “civil marriages” – thanks Iowa, now I get it…CIVIL Marriage! – Don’t Get Me Started!

Through writing my blog for the past however many years I’ve shared my struggles with many things. My weight, my addiction to Starbucks, my thought that the gays were going to throw me out of their membership at any moment for not being gay enough, what to call my guy of over twenty years and finally, why I didn’t quite get the whole “gay marriage” thing. I mean, I get why gays want to marry and why they should but I couldn’t understand why it kept being a gay issue. And I think that as we’re all suckers for great marketing, I couldn’t help but believe that the “gay” word was hurting us homosexuals in getting equal rights. But with a few strokes on a keyboard in Iowa, someone managed to give me that Oprah “Ah Ha” moment she talks of so often.

Suddenly I was renewed with an energy I haven’t felt for a very long time with the idea that our signs written with rainbows and the words, “Gay Marriage” were all wrong. I wrote the word, “civil” on my Word doc and right clicked to get the definition and do you know what I found? I found what the gay community has been looking for (I think) a way to include the gays and a way to get back to a separation of church and state

Civil (adjective)

Definition 1. Polite (this would mean being nice to the other parents at your kid’s soccer game, showing them that it pays to be polite to others. This also includes writing “thank you” notes…actual notes of paper that you will mail and assist in helping the postal workers to keep their jobs and not go “postal” on anyone.)

Definition 2. Relating to citizens (here’s the one we want gays, straights and anyone seeking a tax break by getting married. Like it or not, us gays are citizens and so if something is supposed to be civil, it’s suppose to include us.)

Definition 2. Not military (“connected with ordinary citizens” the keyword here is “ordinary” I don’t want to be “normal” in the sense that the Jesus loving gay haters want me to be but I do consider myself a garden variety or “ordinary” gay so this works for us too)

Definition 4. Not religious (“performed by a state official such as a registrar rather than a member of clergy.” Well I don’t know if we could have asked for a bigger present here with this definition. See, I don’t want a church (or in my case synagogue) wedding so can you see that we’re not talking a religious wedding here we’re talking a CIVIL one?? (Please see above definitions) Civil marriage and let the church figure out what they want to do about allowing or not allowing same sex religious marriages…has nothing to do with the law!

So you see, what we really want is what the Constitution all ready tells us we can have, a civil marriage. All this time I’ve been trying to come up with some cute name for it or a different name and I think the protesting gays with their “Gay Marriage” signs just got the first word wrong. Because marriage in the eyes of the law should be between two consenting adults (are you listening Mormons who raise women children like puppies in a puppy mill to be married off at fourteen to a forty year old pedophile all under the name of cotton dresses and pompadour hair that hasn’t been seen since the last MGM musical was produced) Whether you’re an atheist or a religious person, if you want tax breaks and other rights that our laws afford married people then you not only have to get married by your pastor or whomever but you have to register and get married with the state. Simple, right?

So let’s get the gay out of it for a moment and see what the lawmakers in Iowa saw, an injustice that needed to be corrected. No one’s storming the church asking Benny Hinn to start marrying same sex couples but the local registrar office better get ready to perform a lot of them in every state. And if they have a problem with it they should be cited for going against the laws of the United States of America, can join the ranks of the unemployed or they can all go live on a compound where they seem to put every food imaginable in a jar. (Yes, I watched the Oprah where she went to the Latter Day Saints compound) All the religious people seem to forget in their hatred how impolite it is, the hatred the how shall we say, “uncivil” it is? I think it’s time everyone started learning and showing some manners, let’s start with giving adults the right to marry regardless of sex, shall we? And for all you would be brides and grooms out there, be civil too, send thank you notes. Thanks Iowa, now I get it…CIVIL Marriage! – Don’t Get Me Started!

Project Runway Moves To Lifetime! You Know, Television For Women And The Gays! – Don’t Get Me Started!

For those who read my blog regularly you’ll be bored when I mention again that I was the Ultimate Fan Blogger for Project Runway Season 3 (with my blogs appearing on Bravotv.com after each episode) and that I was almost the official blogger for Season 4 until I was auf’d before I even started. You can read all of that on the PR archive pages on the site. So when I heard that there was a huge legal dispute between Bravo and Lifetime for Season 6 of the show I wasn’t all that surprised. I mean, if you’re going to move it off the gay, gay, gayer than gay Bravo network, the only other place to go is Lifetime. Project Runway moves to Lifetime! You know, Television for Women and the gays! – Don’t Get Me Started!

Just call me an old fashioned gay. I have not (as of yet) added the Logo network or any other specifically gay network to my cable television bill so I have to get my gay television just like we gays used to get it before we had actual networks that proclaimed their gayness for all to see and hear. That’s right kids, you may not remember this so let an old Gaytriarch school you. A not so long time ago there wasn’t a Logo channel so we gays got our television from Bravo TV and Lifetime. Why those networks? Well you see when Bravo started off it was very artsy fartsy. It was back before they ran out of real actors on the Actors’ Studio Show, before they started booking people like Ashton Kutcher or someone who does Pine Sol commercials and they had Project Runway. It even has a gay running the network who eventually gave himself his own show doing the cast reunion shows. As far as Lifetime goes, before it was showing endless reruns of Will And Grace to solidify its standing as the second gay, gay, gayer than gay network it was showing something almost even juicier for gays. It was not only showing every sappy made for television movie but it had reruns of the Golden Girls.

While the legal battle was raging, they still managed to get Season 6 in the can. (Although because it wasn’t airing yet they were forced to not allow the finalists to appear on the runway with their collections when they filmed the finale during Fashion Week) I’m not sure all the legal details (nor do I care) but I know that according to People magazine, the two unofficial gay networks have stopped the bitch fight and are amicably announcing that the new season of Project Runway will be on Lifetime this summer.

The problem I have is that unfortunately having watched the show from Season 1, day one I have to say that each year the show was a little less exciting and this past season was so dull that I found myself not caring who won and wondering why I was even watching the damn show. What will make it worse is that apparently they’re going to move the show to Los Angeles for their next season. What?!? Taking it off of one gay network to put it on the other gay network is one thing but to move it from the fashion capital of the US (New York) and put in Los Angeles where fashion is dictated by singers who have clothing lines makes me think that the show is going the way of most shows that don’t age well, which is to the land of no one watching. As a card carrying Screen Actors Guild member it does my heart good to see reality shows getting tired by season four and going away. I say bring back shows like Carol Burnett (12 seasons) or an ER (14 seasons). But per usual, I digress.

Will I watch the new season of Project Runway, sure and I hope for all our sakes it’s juicy good. But as far as moving to Lifetime being a factor, I don’t think that it one because it’s just going from one gay fav network to another. Project Runway moves to Lifetime! You know, Television for Women and the gays! – Don’t Get Me Started!

EHarmony Launches Gay “Compatible Partners” Dating Site – Don’t Get Me Started!

In response to a discrimination suit, the once we don’t want gays dating site, EHarmony launches gay “Compatible Partners” dating site – Don’t Get Me Started!

Okay so I don’t get the whole online dating thing to begin with. Don’t get me wrong gays, I get the whole trolling for sex online thing but dating? Not so much. (Unless you’re calling sex with a stranger you’ve had two IMs and one text from and are meeting behind a 7/11 at three am a date) I’ve been in a monogamous relationship with the same man for over twenty years so I haven’t ever “hooked up” online (or otherwise frankly) because when I was not in a relationship there was no online to hook up upon. But I get that both men and women do it and if it’s between two consensual adults it’s none of my business.

While I understand why the gays were upset that EHarmony was rejecting them faster than their Born Again Christian parents, I don’t get what’s to be gained by forcing EHarmony to create a gay division. In my humble opinion why would us gays actually want to end up giving this asshole, founder Neil Clark Warren money in his pocket when what we should be doing is not forcing him to create a gay division nor should we want him too. He admits he knows nothing about fixing gays up although he’s supposedly fixed up straightees for over forty years. So why would you want to go to him for advice or help? I don’t get it. He doesn’t get the whole some gays are attracted to other gays who look just like themselves in an effort to share clothes and have people think they’re one of the Doublemint Twins from the seventies. He won’t know that some want the hairy and others want nothing to do with the hairy. The list goes on and on. I’m sorry to say that in this case I think that the gay dating sites know more about what they’re doing and Mr. I’m Hate-The-Gays-And-Their-Lawsuit-So-I’ll-Show-Them-By-Taking-Their-Money-Warren shouldn’t even bother with this site.

And what the fuck is that name, “Compatible Partners?” It sounds like something the Politically Correct movement in America made up. Do you really think I think that I’m just a “compatible partner” to the man I’ve been in love with and who has loved me for all these years? Why don’t you treat us even more homogenized and call it, “Friends” in quotes with a woman who looks like a Jewish mother winking at the camera? The whole thing is so insulting that my anger is too much to even write about (but I’ll try).

Groucho Marx is credited for saying “I would never want to be a member of a club that would have me as a member.” But in the case of “Compatible Partners” I think it should be, “I would never want to be a member of a club that has no idea why I should be a member.” Do I think creating a dating site is the same as keeping African Americans out of pools in the 1950’s? No. And do you know why? Because those were public pools, not private enterprises in business to make money. Look, we Jews were kept out of hotels, country clubs, etc. and eventually we made our own and put the money in our own pockets. The same can be said of dating sites, the gays created their own, they’re making a (you’ll excuse the expression) crapload of money off of them and to me it seems as though that’s the way it should be. Just like the Internet didn’t exist when I could have been an online whore, these other websites for gay dating didn’t exist when EHarmony and others like it started up.

Some will say that I’m wrong, that we need to “force” our way into these straight only sites to gain acceptance but they’re the ones that are wrong. Do you really think by forcing Warren to create this site that he’s going to suddenly vote for gay marriage? Do you really think anyone who uses his site all the while knowing it’s been demeaning and demoralizing to gays are true friends to us gays? They’re not. Because just like a store that follows Black people around because they have some sick stereotype in their head that because of the color of someone’s skin they’re more likely to steal, some people are simply never going to accept us gays. I don’t need acceptance from these losers, they mean nothing to me. What I need are laws saying that they can’t use their prejudice and stupidity to keep me from being in a committed relationship (with all the tax breaks and hospital visitation rights, etc.) not their dating sites. EHarmony launches gay “Compatible Partners” dating site – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Why I Had To “Ignore” My Mother On Facebook! – Don’t Get Me Started!

I’m sure the younger generation has gone through this one but I’m a forty-something gay for Chrissakes and the last person I thought I’d see trying to “friend” me on Facebook was my mother. Now my Mother and I are as co-dependent as they come, we speak every day (after all, I’m a nice Jewish boy) but I’m not sure I want her to see everyone “poking” me, writing on “my wall”, hitting me with a “snowball”, sending me a drink, talisman or anything else that the other seven thousand applications offer you to send and generally annoy your so-called friends. All of the above reasons and more are why I had to “ignore” my Mother on Facebook! – Don’t Get Me Started!

When I first opened my Facebook page of requests I was shocked to see the face that I’ve had memorized since birth appearing right in front of me. You see, a dear friend of mine described the Facebook inbox to me this way, “It’s Purgatory.” When friend requests are in the inbox they’re not accepted or ignored, they’re in limbo and as this friend stated, “It makes you feel popular seeing all these people who want to be your friend so leave them in the inbox” and choose wisely, Grasshopper. But on this particular day to open my inbox and see that not only was my mother on Facebook but that  she had uploaded a picture was a bit unnerving to say the least. You need to understand that although my brother is the VP of IT for a major company, I’m the one who continually gets the call when she can’t get online to play Sudoku or something so I don’t know if I was more shocked that she had managed to figure out how to sign up or that she had gone that extra mile and added a photo (well, we all are over achievers in my family). In any case my somewhat mixed feelings quickly gave way to guilt, frustration and worry (all things good Jewish boys are supposed to have, especially when dealing with their mothers).

After the first shock of it all my thoughts began to go to what I can only assume a killer’s mind would do. (Well, from what I’ve seen in movies, anyway) I could hear the crescendo of music as I looked right and left all the while my mind going faster than any law should allow, “Click, click, click” as my mind raced from thought to thought. I thought, “Should I leave her in my inbox?” (Put your mother in purgatory? What kind of a nice son would do that?) “Should I hit ignore and then if she asks make some excuse that I hit a wrong button” (this option would only buy me time not solve the issue) “Should I hit ‘ignore’ and then quickly cover my tracks acting as if it never happened at all and I had never seen her face staring at me from my inbox if she should ask? I looked at that photo staring up at me again, almost assuredly saying, ‘Nice, you ignore your mother, that’s a nice thing to do to a person who raised you and gave you everything including those blue platform shoes you had to have when you were seven? Nice son, yes?’” The pressure became too much and in the end I went with the honesty is the best policy idea.

The next time I saw my mother I told her that I would not be “friending” her on Facebook. At which point she told me she had no idea what it was or why she even got on it but now she had a bunch of Jewish people who wanted to be her “friend” and she didn’t want to be “friends” with them. Yes, it took some explaining for her to understand that these people were not simply waiting for her to join Facebook but that they were suggestions made from her address book, etc. A suggestion, you know like, “Don’t shit where you eat.” Eventually she got it and decided that the whole Facebook thing was not for her but not until she told me what every person she had managed to “friend” and who had accepted had written for the last week. “You know John? He put on something about Robert. You know Robert is his lover, right? Well, his mother didn’t know for years. None of us did.” And so it went on and on.

When I first joined Facebook I was all over it. I loved re-connecting with high school friends in a strictly online way. It was a way to be sociable and popular without the need to get out of your dirty sweats or actually talk to them on the phone. They posted pictures I hadn’t seen in years (or ever remember being in, is that Alzheimer’s setting in?) and although the years were kind to some but not to others, the strange thing was that when I looked at them they looked the same as they did in high school. Was it my eyes playing tricks or simply my mind seeing them as they were when I knew them and not allowing the intervening years to intervene? With only talking to them online it was easy to keep them frozen in time and I was comforted by it. I couldn’t do that with my mother who I see every Sunday for dinner and talk to on the phone every day. She would never be frozen and in a short time she would be friends with all my high school friends too (because who could resist having my mother as their “friend”). She would ask them personal questions on the wall to wall feature and in time it would be more embarrassing than that time when…wait…I’m not ready to share that but suffice to say that for all these reasons, that’s why I had to “ignore” my Mother on Facebook! – Don’t Get Me Started!