Did You Have A Role Model? – Don’t Get Me Started!

A recent read of People online (Yes, I’ve become my mother who believes that anything important in the world will eventually be covered by such a publication. I call it her “People Magazine Mentality”) anyway, I was reading this piece on Adam Lambert and when asked about his sexuality he said, “Calm down and keep speculating” he also goes on to talk about how “conforming is not cool” and feels he can serve as an example to kids and young adults, “It feels great because I never had a role model like that.” Well if asked I would tell Mr. Lambert that there are plenty of role models out there but the thing about them is that they don’t always come to your door (or appear on television), sometimes you have to go and find them. Did you have a role model? – Don’t Get Me Started!

Look, I couldn’t care less if Adam Lambert is gay, metrosexual or merely likes the makeup like Eddie Izzard (a comedian who also is a cross dresser), that’s Lambert’s own business and I do applaud him for not getting trapped by media (yes, even the gay media) who seem to have their gay vampire fangs out lusting over a full confession that he’s gay and the names of everyone he has ever slept with and if they’re “hot.” Good for him for holding his ground and privacy but if he expects to be a role model for the nonconformists (or anyone) then he’s going to have to do something more besides wear eyeliner and nail polish.

I don’t know about you but when I was growing up I had two very important role models, they were called my parents. I know that a lot of people come from one parent homes but that is immaterial here, back in my day (when dinosaurs roamed the earth and gays were in the middle square on Hollywood Squares) I actually saw my parents (even though both worked) more than I saw “celebrities” so I modeled my behavior from them. I learned how important it was to dress up for depression from my mother and how to not have any patience from my father (okay, let’s face it they can still be role models but not everything you take on from your role model is necessarily good). My point is that my parents were worthy of being my role models (so was Joel Grey, Liza Minnelli, Judy Garland and a host of other gay icons that would only make you roll your eyes if you read the entire list here). But you see they weren’t celebrities for spitting on someone else on a reality show where a bunch of people are locked in a house together or shoved onto an uncharted desert isle, they were people who worked at their craft and through their artistry and some luck made it to be famous and earned my respect as a role model because I wanted to go into the show business too. Sorry Mr. Lambert, you’re going to have to do more than spend 12 weeks on a television show to be a role model.

Not to mention the fact that I had literary, scientific and political role models (to name a few). Anyone who could write a character like Scarlett O’Hara gets my respect and becomes a role model (as did Scarlett…as God as my witness). Sure celebrities are easy to point to as “role models” but in my humble opinion, the real role models are the ones who when you emulate you are not only mimicking someone else’s behaviors or fashion sense but are inspired by them to find a way to make it your own. It’s like cologne or perfume, based on your own chemistry it will smell different on different people. So maybe Lambert is right about the non-conforming but isn’t taking on someone as a role model conforming to their standards and practices, at least a little? Once again, I have managed to stump my own panel (myself) with my rhetoric.

Or maybe taking on a role model is different than the theme song from the television show Facts of Life. Maybe you don’t “take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have the Facts of Life.” Maybe when it comes to role models you only take the good. But who’s to say what’s the good and what’s the bad? Jiminy Cricket isn’t on my shoulder and if my conscience is truly my guide as he used to tell Pinocchio then I’m in big trouble.

I guess what I really think is that the words “role model” seem to be thrown around way too lightly at least when it comes to my understanding of those words. Hey, maybe that’s it, maybe I’m making role models much more important than everyone else and what they should be. Maybe role models are just like a part an actor plays, a role and hopefully you look like a model while doing it? Did you have a role model? – Don’t Get Me Started!

Why I Almost Bit My Vet Instead Of My Cat Doing It! – Don’t Get Me Started!

Look, I understand that if you’re going to be a responsible pet owner that there is more expense involved besides simply replacing scratched furniture and spending your life rolling away the fur that will never be completely gone and yet in some sort of hellish feeble attempt you roll, rip the sticky sheet, roll, rip and repeat more times than you care to remember. On the whole the two stray cats we took in five years ago have provided hours of entertainment, a focus when we needed to focus on something other than one another and warmth on a cold winter’s night. We love them and they love us. So recently when the male cat showed a furless spot it was only a matter of a couple of days before it had not only become a bald spot (I thought he was just turning into me to be honest) but it was an actual lump filled with fluid that could only be infection. So it was off to the vet at 8am on Memorial Day where after a few shots and delivery of the bill I almost bit my vet instead of my cat doing it! – Don’t Get Me Started!

My cat is not unlike me in the fact that he is not quiet about anything and is constantly running his mouth. We’ll often find him in the bathtub listening to the sound of his voice reverberate off the porcelain walls. (Of course sometimes he does this in an attempt to lure his sister into the bathroom for a “surprise” attack – to which she is never surprised) He was named after the male love interest in the musical, Wicked, “Fiyero” is a name I find myself saying so many times in a row that it’s lost all meaning. While I’m not one of those, “Look at our children” people when talking about our cats, I do have to say that I think we’re some damn good animal parents and would be excellent with kids now that we’ve had a dry run with the cats.

The good news was that the drive to the vet’s office was not that long but the piercing “MEOOOOOOOOOOO!” (our cat doesn’t “Meow” as much as he wants to be noticed and kvetch like the good Jewish boy he is, “MEOOOOOO” – a combination of “Me” and “Oh” as in “Oh, you wouldn’t even begin to want to know what I’m going through here but I wouldn’t wish it on you so I’ll just continue to suffer. Can you hear the suffering??”) The noises coming from the carrier did not end when we got into the vet’s office. The good news was that they didn’t want him and his actual caterwauling in the lobby of the office so it got us right into an exam room. Of course before we were taken back a woman with a basset hound who seemed curious as to what the noise was all about looked down at her dog and said, “You don’t want to go over there, it’s a nasty cat.” I almost shoved my foot so far up this woman’s ass that we would have to go to an exam room to get it out but for once, for the sake of all involved, I went quietly to the exam room and just glared at the bitch hoping she would catch swine flu from her nastiness and inability to push back from the table.

The vet came in and I gave him the run down. He assured me it just needed to be cut open and drained. I don’t know about you but I can’t think of anytime when someone tells me about cutting open and draining that it doesn’t drain me a little too. So off my yowling pet went and I went to the lobby where God had worked in a mysterious way and gotten rid of the basset hound bitch (and the dog bitch too). I assured the woman at the front desk that if he required a “cone” for his head that we all ready had one from a prior incident. I’m not sure if I was doing this to make conversation or just trying to save some money on the bill…okay, we all know it was the latter.

They brought my carrier back with a cat who was beside himself. He was so worked up that he couldn’t shut his mouth and like a kid who is crying and can’t quite catch their breath so they speak in halted sentences so was what my cat was trying to tell me. In retrospect I think he was trying to warn me about the bill. So for ten minutes, cutting open, draining and some yearly shots that were needed, the total came to $223! I was less than amused and I was suddenly thankful I had insurance for me but was angry once more that I had never gotten the insurance on the cats. Curse me and my being kitty wise and cat foolish! I immediately asked for an itemized bill. The office “visit” was $40. Now I don’t know why or what reason there would be for a fee to walk through the door but apparently there is one which is separate from the actual examination fee of $30 or something. Apparently it costs more to visit than to be seen by an actual doctor. I can assure you there was no “visiting” going on in the lobby for that five minutes, my cat didn’t pee, poop or wreck anything so explain to me where that $40 is going or why there’s even a charge for the visit? The “procedure” was $60 and there were a bunch of other charges including the ointment and liquid Amoxicillin for another $40 or so plus fees for the other shots, etc. As I walked out with my screaming cat I wanted to scream myself but resisted the urge.

And so it has begun. The good news is that he doesn’t need to wear a cone, the bad news is that he needs ointment on the incision and liquid shot into his mouth twice a day. I’m sure it was from the trauma of all of it but after bringing him home the cat just walked about looking as if his entire world had changed and he didn’t know where he was or who he was. He stared at blank walls, looked pitifully at me and after the first dose of medicine, the throwing up began. Lovely. I know that I shouldn’t blame the vet but as I care for my cat and try to rid the carpet of the vomit all the while thinking of the bill I can’t help but feel  I almost bit my vet instead of my cat doing it! – Don’t Get Me Started!

Proposition 8 Upheld – Don’t Get Me Started!

If I’m honest with myself I didn’t expect the high court of California to reverse the damage that Proposition 8 has done for my equality when it comes to marriage (even though I live in Las Vegas, I lived in California for years and have many an “LA Gay” friend still living there). I didn’t really expect a different outcome but I hoped for it and when I heard the news that the high court was upholding Proposition 8 I felt sick to my stomach. Proposition 8 upheld – Don’t Get Me Started!

I know a couple of couples who married when it was legal in California and I’m happy for them that they will remain married in the eyes of the law per the California Supreme Court decision that was made but doesn’t that somehow make all of this even more ridiculous? I mean the fact that if you were married during that seemingly ten minutes that it was legal then it’s okay to be a same sex couple but if you want to get married now it’s illegal? Am I the only one who doesn’t get how it can be legal for the 18,000 who were married but then not legal for any other same sex couples?

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it a thousand more times probably, I want the rights not the shoes and rice but what do you do when lawmakers tell you that you’re not worthy of being seen equal under the law as the Constitution guarantees because you are in love with someone of the same sex? How do you just go about your day, pay your taxes, and contribute to society, open the door for your fellow straight citizens who are somehow better than you because they can marry and you can’t? Oh wait, they’re only better than most of us, not the chosen 18,000 of same sex couples who get to be married.

Should we take to the streets? I know that some will. Should we write our congress people? We have. Should we get a chip on our shoulder over this? No, but we probably will. And why shouldn’t we? No one blamed women for being angry about not getting to vote and still not getting equal pay for doing the same quality of work as a man. No one blames the African Americans for holding a grudge that we brought them to this country without their consent and sold them into slavery. No one blames the Native Americans who were on this continent first and yet were killed by the thousands and given a small parcel compared to what they owned originally. Sure there will be some that say, “That happened so long ago, get over it.” They say the same thing to Jews about the Holocaust but how can you “get over it” when Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness from the Declaration of Independence has fine print that it shall not include anyone but the white religious Right? At the very least allow us to feel what we feel. Or do we not even have that right anymore?

And for those of you who would call my lifestyle a deviant psychological behavior that should not be compared to race or gender inequality I would ask that you take your collective heads out of your asses and understand that the world is not flat and the idea that homosexuality is some sort of illness is not based on any real facts but on religious fervor created by man not your pal Jesus or his father, you know, GOD? Remember him? The world has changed and those of us who have evolved with it demand your respect. Fuck tolerance, I want to be respected and I want the union that I’ve been in for the past twenty years to be as respected as two teen Christians who find themselves with a  baby on the way and their parents making them get married because it will make Jesus happy. I’m sorry that I didn’t “make a baby” and don’t “have” to get married, I’m sorry I made a conscious choice as an adult to be in a completely monogamous and committed relationship. How daring, how scandalous, how disgusting, right? Wrong.

And while I’m on the subject it’s time that the Black in the White House get onboard too (yes, I wrote it and I mean it). We gays were told that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell would go away and until it did there would be sound hearings before anyone else was dishonorably discharged under this policy. It hasn’t happened, people as recently as a few weeks ago have lost their right to serve and their benefits because of this policy and the White House has stood silent. We were told Obama was against gay marriage but was for giving us rights, well the time has come for him and the rest of the political machine that doesn’t mind taking our money, having us throw fabulous parties for them and doing their hair to keep their end of the bargain. Am I mad? You bet your ass I’m mad and you should be too. Because it may not be today but soon, very soon, whites will no longer be the majority in this country and then where will YOU be? Boarded up with your guns and Jesus in a hut that makes the Uni-bomber’s shed look like a palace? And where will I be you ask? Hopefully not still trying to get into a hospital room that holds my beloved that I’ve been NOT married to for however many years because of some antiquated fear based religious mandate from a government that is supposed to offer a separation of church and state. I expect more from all of us for all of us, don’t you? And much like the Dan Fogelberg song, Same Old Lang Syne (paraphrased and changed to suit my needs of course) – “Just for a moment I was back at school and felt that old familiar pain. And as I turned to see my rights denied again my joy turned into pain.” Proposition 8 upheld – Don’t Get Me Started!

So You Think You Can Dance Season 5 – And Should It Be On For Two Hours? – Don’t Get Me Started!

It took a holiday weekend for me to be able to catch up on all the television programming that was crammed into my Tivo like a bunch of high school kids trying to see how many they could shove into a phone booth. (Yikes, just realized that they may not have phone booths anymore…if you don’t know what one is Google it and I’m sure they’ll be able to provide you not only with a picture of the booth but with some people trying to cram themselves in…and yes, this IS what we used to do for entertainment). So by the end of the weekend I had finally mustered the courage (and the patience) to sit and watch the opening of So You Think You Can Dance – And Should It Be On For Two Hours? – Don’t Get Me Started!

The best news of the opener was that there was less Cat Deeley (the host) from wherever she’s from but who tends to get more in the way of the show than actually add to it. Like a leg warmer that has fallen down and gotten tangled in your shoe – it’s no longer serving its purpose and it’s just damned annoying. But for some reason less of her meant more pontificating from Nigel. Like people who have no sense of their own space and are constantly invading yours, he has no idea when to just shut his mouth. It’s painful to watch (almost as painful as him trying to style his hair in some sort of Farrah Fawcett tribute) and these are the times when I would gladly give my “fast forward” button anything it wanted because it allows me to hear none of his speeches that he gives for his own satisfaction.

For the most part the dancers are amazing on this show, truly they are and if anyone doesn’t get why the arts are important I want them to watch these people express themselves in dance and tell me that we all don’t need a little art in our lives. There are less of the annoyingly bad people they put through for comedy than on American Idol but they still have them. I wish someone somewhere would get it that I don’t think putting a delusional person on television is funny. These people obviously think they’re talented when they practice their routines in the bedrooms but because our society has turned into one where you can be a slut and be a television star overnight on an MTV or VH1 show everyone thinks they have talent now or at the very least should be rich and famous and for some reason their parents aren’t telling them any different. Once again the good news is that the majority of the people on this show have studied dance for years and are exceptional.

Now did you really think that you were going to read all of this and not hear my take on the two male dancers who danced ballroom together? I had read last week about the whole thing on gayagenda.com and queerty.com about how these two guys danced together and were in a tizzy because of the comments made by the judges. They felt that they were being held back by hitting their heads (not those heads, minds out of gutters please) on the rhinestone ceiling that is the So You Think You Can Dance show. While I hate that the show tries desperately to cast only straight or straight acting male dancers, I get what they’re trying to do. They’re trying to show that not all dancers are gay to supposedly make the show more “accessible” so they’re casting as many butch ones as they can get their hands on. The same thing came out about Dancing With The Stars after the first few seasons, they made it very clear that they only wanted straight professional male dancers on the show. While they’re right that it makes for some more interesting chemistry with their female stars there are plenty of gays in the ballroom world who would be fabulous on the show. (You might remember that this was the season they cast Lance Bass to try and undo the casting of the only straight professional dancers and show the world that they would cast gay stars to participate. Whatever.) But back to our boy ballroom duo from SYTYCD. I don’t think the judges were unfair to them at all (as some articles and blogs I’ve read have suggested). Nigel couldn’t get his head around it true but seemed to be telling them that more to their detriment than dancing together was the fact that they had just fallen and barely gotten to their feet. Mary who is the big ballroom person on the show was trying to figure out the whole “lead” and “follower” thing because the men made the choice to go back and forth (something which is not normally done in ballroom – traditional man leads woman follows both are bedazzled). Watching these two guys dance together, I wanted them to be fabulous for them as well as all the gays in the gay kingdom but here’s the problem. Neither of them was a strong enough dancer to be considered for the show. I wouldn’t have cast them if I had only seen them dance apart and certainly the partnering wasn’t that great either so that wouldn’t have pushed me over the edge in their favor either. Silly gays, don’t you know that when you do something like this you have to be better than anyone else in the world? Much like Blacks had to be so much better in whatever they wanted to do just to get a fair chance, the same is true for gays (whether you think the civil rights movement and the gay rights movement have anything in common know this to be true, we have to be better to even be considered  it’s a fact.) These boys just weren’t good enough so they need to stop their bitching and get back in the studio to work harder on their craft than their righteous indignation.

I’ll watch this season as I’ve watched seasons past but not without my Tivo, not without my trusty “fast forward” button because I’m just one of those people who strongly feel that one hour is a good thing and two hours does not make for two much of a good thing but just two hours of programming. So You Think You Can Dance – And Should It Be On For Two Hours? – Don’t Get Me Started!

Adam Lambert Loses Idol – Another Reason To Hate Facebook – Don’t Get Me Started!

I’m not sure if it’s my fault or not (though my Jewish guilt would almost always have me believe that it couldn’t be anyone else’s fault but mine) but I refuse to watch shows in real time any more. I opt for watching them off my Tivo/DVR system where I can zip through the commercials and portions of these reality shows that they just put on for filler or for a sponsor. You know, like when they have the Biggest Losers put vegetables in a Ziplock bag and act like it’s a cooking show to get you to buy Ziplock. All of those moments are easily avoidable but the problem is that with a little thing I like to call my life, sometimes I don’t see a show until a day or so after it has aired. That causes a problem when the finale of these competition shows air and so the same happened this week when I was all content to watch the Dancing With The Stars finale on the night American Idol was having theirs but then signed onto my Facebook later in the evening to get an email from someone and saw that on their “status” one of my so-called “friends” from the east coast had put the name of the winner on Facebook, this I saw before the show had even started on my coast so you can imagine my level of hatred. Adam Lambert loses Idol – another reason to hate Facebook! – Don’t Get Me Started!

I think that Facebook is just as fun as most normal (what is that exactly I’m sure I don’t know) people do. When I started my Facebook page I checked it several times a day, changed the profile picture, posted my status with such clever things as “Scott is feeling as though you know what you did” etc. But very quickly as the people I thought I’d gotten rid of from my life began to find me on Facebook it lost some of its appeal. Sure it’s great to see some old photos from high school that you don’t even remember having taken but I really don’t want to re-connect with everyone from my old school and have Sunday dinners together or suddenly be asked to be a Godparent to their kids. And while I made the leap from MySpace (which I could never understand because it took so damn long for any page to load) to Facebook, I’ve made a little deal with myself not to get on Twitter which is apparently just the status part of Facebook. Pretty soon they’ll develop a “social networking” tool that will only require one word. In preparation of this happening, my first word is “Nougat.”

But perhaps I should be writing about the “controversy” (made up by the media) about the fact that Kris (K is for Christian and married at 22) managed to win over Adam (the gay who must not be named). I’ll tell you something, at the risk of having the gay mafia come and take my membership card (or worse yet, have them cut it up in front of me when I go to buy my next Liza Minnelli CD) I think that Adam is very talented but that screaming got on my nerves big time. I thought that Sam Harris back in the days of Star Search was a screamer but he was at least on pitch and the sound didn’t make you want to kill your mother (if your mother was Angela Lansbury in the Manchurian Candidate). Would I be surprised if we found out that what held Adam back was the fact that he was perceived as gay? No. But I don’t think you can exactly make the argument that Kris Allen was as talent free as William Hung either. Kris has that sort of boyish charm mixed with James Taylor laid backness with a singing style that apparently makes it impossible for him to hold any note without singing out of the side of his face.

What I’m trying to get to is that I think us gays should sit this dance out. If Adam Lambert is gay good for him. He owes no one anything but himself. Just because he signs up for a singing contest doesn’t give the public (are you listening Mr. Perez) the right to “out” him or anyone else. What always amazes me when gay bloggers and writers “out” a celebrity is that they seem to forget that it was probably not very easy for them to come out so why oh why would you put a fellow gay through a difficult time like that holding a magnifying glass up to it like they’re an ant and you’re trying to burn them.

We all win some and we all lose some. We lost marriage rights in California and Anne Heche, we got the right to marry in Iowa and still have Isaac Mizrahi (with his fab new show on Bravo). Both Adam and Kris have an opportunity that few get, to be on television on one of the most popular shows in the world. Whatever they do when they leave the Idol nest will determine who the real winner is and perhaps both can be winners but one thing is for sure, I’ll never look at Facebook on the night of a reality competition show’s finale again. Adam Lambert loses Idol – another reason to hate Facebook! – Don’t Get Me Started!

Why Hallmark Needs To Hire Me – Don’t Get Me Started!

Although I’ve mentioned it time and time again, when sending a greeting card, the only company to send from is MikWright (see all their cards including some that feature yours truly - my coaster is at the left there and you can see all of their great stuff at www.mikwright.com) however it was recently announced that even though Hallmark took a bit of a beating from “those” people (you know who you are) apparently “us” people were delighted by (and bought enough of) their line of cards specifically for gay marriages so now they’re going to expand their gay offerings beyond the marital state . Kudos to Hallmark for that one but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that while Hallmark turned to people like Maya Angelou for their “Mahogany” line of cards (designed for black people and not really for gay queens who loved and obsessed over the movie, Mahogany starring Diana Ross) who are they going to turn to for the gay line? Lance Bass? Ellen? I think not and that’s why I think Hallmark needs to hire me – Don’t Get Me Started!

Of course one may make the argument that Hallmark all ready has plenty of gays working for them. I’ve no doubt this is true and if you have any doubt, go over to their site and watch any of their HI-larious e-cards featuring the characters Hoops and YoYo and you’ll instantly know there are gays in the house of Hallmark. But with the new line they’re going to need some new blood and I’m exactly what the doctor ordered.

From an early age my mother had the good taste to make me write thank you notes…for everything. (In this day and age I wonder when the hell people decided that this wasn’t the thing to do. A thank you note is a required element of life. As my mate says, even if you hated the gift, have enough savvy to send the thank you to ensure you’ll get another gift and the next one may be fabulous. If you’re a parent and you’re not teaching the art of thank you notes, you’re a bad parent. There I’ve said it and I’m not sorry one bit!) I was so into stationery that at one point I had enough in my house to open my own boutique. I had the personalized stuff down to the recycled maps stationery. I was a letter writer from way back before there was such a thing as email and more than once I was told I gave good letter. I still give good letter.

Still not convinced that Hallmark needs me? Allow me to give you some samples:

Card One: The front of the card is a gay party scene with men in and out of shirts. Inside: I know, if you had a nickel for every party you went to where you found out you’d slept with everyone there you’d have a fortune. Congrats on getting rid of your most recent STD!

Card Two: The front would have two men having a picnic, it would have that soft lens filter on it and you would only see the back of their heads touching with the space between their heads and necks creating an organic looking heart shape. Inside: With each passing day I’m so glad that we’re gay. That our lives intertwine and that you don’t buy cheap wine. The walks on the beach, the boys that we meet, that prostitute we hired that was so into feet. Happy Anniversary, Darling.

Card Three (The Lesbian Card): The front would have the picture of a stereotypical butch looking lesbian complete with her hands on her hips and wearing a tool belt. The caption would read, “I eat fags for breakfast!” Inside: Gays, the other white meat! Congrats on coming out!

Apparently You Shouldn’t Call Someone “Satan’s Helper” in Idaho – Don’t Get Me Started!

For most of my life I have used self deprecating humor as a way to take the focus off of me and get it on me at the same time. Only someone who uses this brand of humor can understand what I’m talking about. It’s like the person who doesn’t want to stand out in a crowd but wears outrageous clothes that makes everyone stare. But you see (as I’ve learned from Stacy and Clinton from TLC’s What Not To Wear) people do this so that the clothes get the attention and people couldn’t even tell you what the person inside those clothes looked like if they had to for the police or if someone was holding a gun to their head. So often my self deprecating humor found its way into the world of double entendre and one-liners that would make Henny Youngman proud. So recently when traveling on business and going down to that small area by the front desk of my hotel where you can charge everything from a large bottle of water to a half pint of Ben & Jerry’s to your room, I had the bottle of water in my hand and as the front desk woman asked me my last name so that she could charge it to the room she asked me if I was going to get anything else as I salivated looking at the box of Oreos. When I said I wasn’t sure whether or not I wanted some of the crap food, she encouraged me to get it and as so often happens, I just said what came to my mind and said, “What are you Satan’s helper?” Her face and demeanor changed immediately. She became curt and business-like. Apparently you shouldn’t call someone “Satan’s Helper” in Idaho – Don’t Get Me Started!

The woman whom I know have no doubt is a good church going someone (and perhaps even goes to the Church of the Later Day Suckers from the billboards I saw as I drove in from the Salt Lake City, Utah airport into Pocatello, Idaho) obviously also has no sense of humor. If there’s one thing I can’t stand about someone it’s their not having a sense of humor. I feel badly for these people who seem to never get the joke and I feel even worse for those people who think they have a sense of humor but they really just tell bad jokes that got turned down by the World’s Worst Joke Book editors for being just too bad. (And not in a Michael Jackson “I’m Bad” kind of way where bad means good)

And so I’ve decided to help you out with some of my favorite one-liners and double entendres that work in most situations to make people think you’re witty and to garner a laugh or two from your audience of friends, family, co-workers or complete strangers.

Here is my favorite all around best line to use in almost any situation – “That’s what she/he said!” This can be used when anyone says almost anything and it makes you seem as if you are an authority on all things sexual. Here’s an example, a workman is at your house trying desperately to remove the spoon that you’ve ground down to a nub in your garbage disposal, he says, “I can’t get it out.” You reply with a good, “That’s what she said” You’ve broken the ice, you’ve gotten a laugh and under the right circumstances you’ve got a date and/or immediate sex!

Next up, “Ugly Squared” this happened by accident once when a friend of mine and I went into someone’s house and saw an ugly lamp. He said, “God, is that lamp awful or what?” I said, “That lamp is so ugly it’s ugly squared.” Just like in a math equation, this immediately tells someone that this is an ugly with attitude, so ugly it’s doubly ugly!

“Boy is his homework tough” this is used when you have a friend who has a boyfriend who is a problem (yes, can be used for a girlfriend too, I’m giving examples based on the male gay world here). Just like when you were in school and had tough homework, this phrase  implies that not only is your friend’s lover an ass in public but when they’re at home you’re friend has it even worse. Whitney Houston when she was married to Bobby Brown, boy was her homework tough!

“More tampered with than Tylenol in the 80’s!” I used this first to describe Natalie Suleyman’s face when she first burst on the scene. Although she claimed that she had no plastic surgery done I disagreed. So as I was typing my blog about her it just came to me (I think divine intervention or at the very least Charles Nelson Reilly channeling through me – with Brett Somers by his side) “Puhlease, that girl’s face has been tampered with more than Tylenol in the 80’s.”

Yes, We All See The Faces You’re Making But You See We Think You’re The Asshole – Don’t Get Me Started!

I don’t know if you’ve ever had this experience but I’ve had it more than once and I for one have had enough. Have you ever been in a grocery store or somewhere on a line where you have to pay the cashier and there’s a problem of some sort? Of course you have. Well the person who is having the problem (either brought up an item without a price tag on it, thinks it should be on sale when it didn’t ring up that way, or whatever) or the person with the person who is having the problem starts making faces and guttural noises to the other people in line? Oh not to apologize for the holdup but instead to make faces like a four year old not getting their way, in a sort of berating way toward the cashier? I recently experienced this and I just wanted to let the guy know that yes, we all see the faces you’re making but you see we think you’re the asshole! – Don’t Get Me Started!

I think it was at a Walmart (should I lie to make you think I don’t shop in such ordinary places) and there was some sort of problem. The cashier needed to bring over another cashier and the woman who was paying seem to be okay with the proceedings however the man with her (who could have been a boyfriend, a friend, her husband or her baby’s daddy) started in. First there was the huge exhale as his arms were thrown from beside his head down past his waist as if he had been slimed and was trying to get the gunk off. He did it so hard that it threw him off balance a bit and he had to walk around in a circle on himself to sort of play it off. I’ll admit that I was third back in this line, it had been going on for about five minutes and now I had four or five people behind me. I’m not a patient person but somehow when I see a moron like this making a complete ass out of himself I enter a Zen like state and become as calm as a calculated killer. As I stared at the guy with my eyes boring through his soul (imaginary of course but still feels good) I could feel my blood pressure lowering and I suddenly didn’t care how long I had to wait as long as it held this guy up too. Next up was him looking back at the long line and acting as if he was annoyed that there were so many people being held up supposedly by this cashier. As if he gives a rat’s ass that we’re all waiting. I hardly think he’s going to wait until the now sixth person behind me gets to the front of the line so that he can make a new friend. And finally the tapping of the foot with his head up to the ceiling as both he and everyone in line imagine him as Yosemite Sam with cartoon smoke coming from his ears.

The thing that these jerks don’t realize is that they are not making the cashier or the store look badly, instead they’re making me think that this is a person I wouldn’t ever want anything to do with, ever. And does this little act of theirs elicit laughs from their audience of friends and family? (And if so, I need to know who these friends and family are too because I want nothing to do with them either) But perhaps I’m taking this too personally because I’ve been where the cashier is in these situations. I’ve had a register (as we used to call it back in the day before it became a POS – Point Of Sale) where the computer system wasn’t working correctly. I’ve had the slimy asshole making noises in front of me treating me as a subhuman because I couldn’t fix the problem myself or make things go faster for them. I empathize with these cashiers and guess what? So should all of you. Haven’t we all had a bad day at work where nothing we do seems to go right? And isn’t it sometimes something beyond our control? For those of you who don’t work retail (or never have) you may not get it but let me put it this way for you – you have a major presentation due and your computer crashes. You have to call someone from the IT department to fix your computer meanwhile your boss is in your office trying to weigh the options and figure out if the presentation can be put off to another day, knows they’re going to have a meeting with the IT department to see how to get everything stored on the server and not everyone’s own computers to avoid this in the future and all the while there’s a guy from accounting who was also supposed to be in the meeting and he’s acting like the guy from Walmart. If you’re above the first floor, I dare you not to throw him out a window.

Look, I get frustrated too (look at the freaking title of my blog for crap sake) but I get more frustrated with rude people than the situation or the person who perhaps has had little training who is trying to solve the problem. To quote Shakespeare, “The fault dear Brutus is not in our stars but in ourselves that we are underlings.” I don’t know if we’re underlings but I wish we could at least be kinder to the people waiting on us. Yes, we all see the faces you’re making but you see we think you’re the asshole! – Don’t Get Me Started!

The Show Business – The Dazzling Dinner Theatre Years – Don’t Get Me Started!

Once I had moved to Delaware there were plenty of nights when I woke up screaming wondering what I had done to myself. Although where I lived in Delaware was only a half an hour away from Philadelphia and two hours from New York, the people of Delaware that I encountered seemed as though those metropolises were millions of miles away. I was thrust into a land where people bought license plates to see who could get the lowest number possible. Where a red scarf from Talbot’s was considered daring and the all important housing development you lived in was more important than anything. I didn’t get it. I had never been exposed to these types of people and they certainly had never been exposed to me so it was a hate/hate relationship from the start. However as with most towns with small minds, the larger minds worked in the local theatre so at least when I went to the theatre at night the people there who worked at DuPont during the day were a bit more progressive in their thoughts at night when they would put on their makeup and tights. This would be the start of my eleven plus years in Delaware and more to the point eleven plus years of Dinner Theatre, God bless ME, EVERYONE! The Show Business – The Dazzling Dinner Theatre Years – Don’t Get Me Started!

The first show I was cast in was A Chorus Line. I was horribly miscast as the male part of the one couple in the show. He was supposed to be a tough guy from New York with his wife who couldn’t sing. I think I was pretty lousy in that production but come on, it was Delaware so no one saw it but my parents. The girl who played my wife was still in high school does that give you any indication of the level of talent? Toward the end of the run I was making plans to go back to Arizona. I had a friend there who asked me to come and help her with her yearly dance production at my old high school. I would teach alongside her and assistant choreograph the show with her which included a finale of all 150 students in the dance program on stage dancing at the same time.

Before I was to leave for Arizona some of the kids at the dinner theatre were talking about another dinner theatre in the area that was auditioning for a musical revue. I heard all the stories about how it was very cliquish at this other theatre and that no one from the outside would ever get into the shows. Here I was with both my union (stage and film) cards and I thought, “In Delaware? Not cast me? I’ve gotta see this!” And so I went to the other theatre’s audition and after a couple of callbacks they called to tell me I had gotten the show. The problem was I had to go to Arizona for a month. They agreed that I could be gone for that period of time and still be in the show. So off to Arizona I went that March with a roundtrip ticket back to Delaware in April. While in Arizona I had booked a job for the fall of that year to act in a series of shows that would tour the school system in Arizona. I don’t know if I was doing it to get back to someplace where people seemed more normal or if somewhere in my head I was thinking that it was a way back to my original goal of being the number one gay theatre couple in Arizona so that I could get back with my ex, the well-known director in Phoenix.

Upon my return to Delaware I have to say that where the first dinner theatre I worked in Delaware looked like some summer stock theatre/barn in a wooded community, this new dinner theatre was a palace atop a country club that looked like a Vegas show room. I enjoyed the people there and with a six show a week schedule, it seemed perfect. The show after the revue was Singin’ In The Rain. I had watched this movie so many times as a youth I could do every scene (including choreography) without even thinking about it. I auditioned for the role of “Cosmo” the Donald O’Connor role under the stipulation that I could only do half of the run as I was due in Phoenix to start the touring show. The day of the audition there was another auditioner who everyone knew at the theatre that I was quickly introduced to by my current cast mates. He was a six foot black man who had a smile like I had never seen before in my life. As he left the theatre that day and I got ready for the evening show, I looked at him as he stood in the doorway of my dressing room. For a split second there seemed to be a fuzzy glow about him. It was like in the movies when they used a special filter to film the star. I wouldn’t say it was love at first sight but in my heart I knew at that moment that this person was going to be in my life for the rest of my life on some level. We were friends for six months until we realized how much we loved one another and it’s been over twenty years now that we’ve been together as a couple. And although there are times I wake up and wonder who the hell this is sleeping in my bed, more often than not when I look at him I see that aura about him I saw that first day and it still makes my heart beat a little faster.

The producers told me they would only give me the part of “Cosmo” in Singin’ In The Rain if I did the entire run and so I called the Arizona theatre and told them I was staying in Delaware. They threatened to sue but didn’t and thus began my full time career as a dinner theatre performer and then eventually a director, choreographer, marketing, sales and everything else for the theatre. During our eleven years of working at the dinner theatre together, my guy and I would be performing one show while rehearsing the next show with only a ten day break four times a year (I would play the role of “Cosmo” five times during our tenure at the theatre, including a tenth anniversary production of the first time we ever did it). My guy and I were together 24/7 and if you want to really test a relationship by all means, work together!

In between working at the theatre I found time to teach dance classes at local studios, coach Olympic skaters on performance rink side at the University of Delaware, create and direct educational outreach operas for Virginia Opera and at one point was an assistant choreographer on a show at Disneyland in California that my ex was directing. When he called to ask me to do the show I thought he wanted my talent and to make amends for him now living in LA where I had once begged him to live with me. It wasn’t until the last day there at Disneyland that he admitted he had brought me onto the creative team in hopes we would get back together. I don’t know if I was naïve or just so much in love with my guy in Delaware that I never noticed the hidden agenda of my ex but as I left California to return to Delaware my ex and I understood that the time for us to be together had passed long ago and would never return.

 I don’t exactly know why but my guy and I went to visit my parents who were now living in Las Vegas and decided to move there. Neither of us had jobs or even job prospects but a month later we were on our way to Las Vegas. Almost immediately the theatre began calling to ask my guy to come back and do some shows. He was so well known at the theatre by audiences that people would literally call and ask if he was in the show as the criteria as to whether or not they would buy tickets to come see the show. As anyone learns who “moves away” you suddenly become much more valuable. Here I had been directing, choreographing, performing in and maintaining the shows and suddenly he was being offered more money than I made doing all those jobs just to perform. So often he would go back east to do a show or two at the theatre. Meanwhile a friend I had met at Disney was working on a project in Vegas and he got me an interview with the producer so my first job in Las Vegas was to be the show director for the grand opening of the Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum in Las Vegas. The list of celebrities I would be telling where to stand on the stage included Wayne Newton, Siegfried and Roy, Neil Sedaka, Don King, Wolfgang Puck, etc. But as this was a one night gig it meant four weeks of pre-production and when the event was done so was my job. One of the other producers on the project was going to work for a company out of LA and asked if I would do some consulting work for him. Thus began my life in Corporate America. Sure I was still dabbling by choreographing the annual holiday show at the Fashion Show mall here in Vegas which included a 100 foot runway, ten showgirls and Santa appearing out of the floor in a vintage cherry red Cadillac convertible but for the most part my theatre days were over.

It’s been over ten years now since I’ve been on stage. I still miss it. I had groomed myself from the age of six to be on stage. I didn’t know I could do anything else, I still wish it was all I was doing. Sure, a few years ago I started my website, blog and the video blog which are creative outlets to a certain extent but it’s really not the same. It’s not the same as having an audience laugh or applaud for you. It’s not the same as working with a cast who don’t think the show will ever be ready but you help them make a success of themselves on opening night. There’s a large part of me that thinks my theatre life is just lying dormant in my system and that it will resurface some day. I hope it’s soon because it’s where my heart is and it has been too long since I felt my heart beat to an orchestra playing the strains of the overture as I’m in the wings waiting for my cue to go on.

The Show Business – The Los Angeles Years Take Two – Don’t Get Me Started!

I moved back to Arizona from Los Angeles with little direction and even less cash. I didn’t know what I was going to be eventually in my life but I was pretty certain that whatever it was I was going to end up being it wouldn’t happen in Arizona. When I was growing up we used to say, “Do you know why California doesn’t fall into the ocean? Because Arizona Sucks!” Now when I go back to Arizona I appreciate it as my hometown where I spent most of my childhood and really like it but having had a less than successful career attempt in Los Angeles, Arizona seemed to just be where people who didn’t make it went to live. And although I was only there for a little over a year, it seemed a lifetime before I would try once more to make my LA dreams of fame come true. The Show Business – The Los Angeles Years Take Two – Don’t Get Me Started!

The first thing I did when I got back to Arizona was to get a job. I worked retail. I worked in the box office at a department store (selling concert tickets) that was connected to the gift wrap department so I did that too. In the off times I dreamed of getting back on stage and so it would come to pass in the month of April of that year I did just that in a local community production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. I was playing the role of “Benjamin” the youngest brother and the director was the foremost theatre director in Arizona. There was once a review written about this director that said having his name on a show was like having the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. I was featured a lot in the show and by opening night I was the featured boy in the director’s life too. I always screw things up. Instead of screwing someone to get a part, I actually got the part and then the screwing began! He was eleven years my senior (although the age he gives everyone now makes him five years younger than me or something). He was my first real relationship and I thought that my life was all set. He would direct me in all the shows that I would undoubtedly star in and we would be the number one gay theatre couple in Phoenix! My fantasy of once again becoming famous by someone else’s doing crumbled rather quickly. I had all ready signed up to go in the fall to the University of the Arts in Philadelphia because my parents were moving back east to care for my father’s father so I decided I would spend the summer with my director/boyfriend in Houston where he was directing a show and then go back east in September. This was my coming out scene with my mother:

Me: I’m going to Houston for the rest of the summer to be with <Insert name here>.

Mother: What?!? Why the hell would you do that?

Me: I’m in love with him and he’s in love with me.

Mother: Don’t tell your father, it’ll kill him.

And so I went to Houston and then in the fall began the dumbest thing I’d ever done in my life. While I began classes in Philly, I thought I could sustain a long distance relationship in my first ever real relationship. By the end of the semester I was done with the school (too many problems to go into here about the actual school but let’s put it this way, the head of the school said to me at the end of term, “You’re going to need to change your attitude if you want to come back next semester.” To which I replied, “You’re going to have to change your curriculum so that it is actually what it says it’s supposed to be in the brochure or I won’t be back.” It was best for both of us that we parted ways) Christmas was spent in Arizona where I felt like a Catholic kid. My director/boyfriend had gotten me so many gifts I didn’t know where to look first. He got me everything from a silly nightshirt in a Coke bottle to a bubble gum machine (and everything else you’d buy for a ten year old in between). I didn’t know it at the time but this would be the closest I would ever get to being a boy toy.

I encouraged my director/boyfriend to seek opportunities outside of Arizona. I tried desperately to talk him into moving to LA to no avail and then fate intervened. Through someone who knew someone who got me an audition, I auditioned and was cast in a supporting role in a movie starring Rosanna Arquette and Eric Roberts that was being filmed in Arizona. I was over the moon.

When I read the script for the movie I knew it was lousy but hey, this was going to make me a movie star so I didn’t care. Who cared that in the script it had me being accidentally set on fire? The stunt coordinator on the set assured me that I had seven seconds before the heat I felt on my leg meant I was really on fire. After four weeks of filming, the production company went to LA and I went with them. My director/boyfriend had gotten a gig working in an upstate New York theatre company for the summer where he would get his Equity card and then join me in LA in the fall. Everything was perfect for ten minutes.

I got to LA and thought that I would surely be able to get an agent quickly this time. After all, I had a movie coming out. Not only did it not open any doors, it closed a few – that’s how lousy the movie was. Eventually I got an agent because the one I had been with as a kid in Arizona had opened up a branch in LA and out of pity or something they took me on as a client. They sent me on the worst auditions imaginable. I would be so excited because I had an audition for a Kentucky Fried Chicken commercial that was National (which meant residual checks every time it played). I opened the door at the audition and in the waiting room everyone was either red haired and freckled or black, everyone except me of course. I was sent on an Asian cola commercial that was supposedly going to film in Hawaii where everyone was a body builder but me. When it came time to be filmed for our audition, as the other guys stripped down to their Speedos with great abs, I pulled down my pants to reveal a pair of Dolphin shorts (think Richard Simmons) and feeling completely ridiculous at my 100 pounds with little to no definition other than short, white Jewish, gay kid, I did a dead on Pee Wee Herman imitation to try to get them to laugh with me, not at me.

The movie came out and was a flop. My director/boyfriend finished in New York and moved right back to Arizona. By this time my father’s father was quite ill so I went back for a visit. I had never seen my father so upset. I was to stay for five days. On day four a cousin of mine who did community theatre back east said that she knew of a local dinner theatre that was doing a production of A Chorus Line and someone had dropped out a week before the opening. I made the decision to stay and do the show. After all nothing was happening for me in LA and I really felt as though I needed to be close to my parents and grandfather. I called my roommate and had her describe the clothes in my closet. I told her what to pack and what to leave. My brother came from San Diego and took the stuff that was to be left for when I would someday supposedly move back to LA. I never saw that apartment again. My director/boyfriend would tell everyone that my moving to Delaware was me ending our relationship. When in truth the relationship was done long before this move. And so it was that for the second time I left LA.

There was a print of James Dean that my boyfriend/director had bought me for that big Christmas, we had seen it in a gallery and I fell in love with it. It was James Dean walking on a street and it said, “Boulevard of Broken Dreams.” That’s how I felt when I left LA for the second time. The print was in Arizona with my director/boyfriend, my furniture and some of my clothes were in San Diego with my brother and my life was now in Delaware. How could there possibly be a happy ending?  The Show Business – The Los Angeles Years Take Two – Don’t Get Me Started!

Final Installment Tomorrow - The Show Business – The Dazzling Dinner Theatre Years

The Show Business – The Los Angeles Years Take One – Don’t Get Me Started!

I never gave any real thought to going to college. I mean, I didn’t want to teach theatre and since I’d been performing since I was six years old, I really saw no need. Years later I would end up going to a couple of colleges but no degrees. My joke was that I only went to college long enough to get a student ID for the discount (this wasn’t all together a lie). No, instead of college I would move to LA where I had a few friends and I was sure I would be able to break into the show business – the Los Angeles Years Take One – Don’t Get Me Started!

I had signed for a musical theatre camp in Dallas that began immediately after I graduated from high school. It was a very prestigious camp with the word, “Institute” after it (which meant that it was expensive). Here we were to learn about the business of the business as well as the show part from instructors who were out there working. Also we would do a staged reading production of a new musical. Of course I was thrilled and even more excited when I called to tell them that I didn’t have any money and they offered to give me a full scholarship. It was to be three weeks right at the start of the summer. While there I worked very hard and although I was only cast in a minor role in the musical (it was a musical based on how Neiman Marcus came to being a store complete with songs that talked about “stocking the shelves.”) The big payoff for me was a session taught by a manager from LA who came to speak and upon hearing me sing and read he was convinced that I could work immediately in LA. He said I was perfect for the quirky best friend or the kid dying of a disease. And although I was smart enough to understand that he probably wanted to give me a sexually transmitted disease more than thinking I would be cast as the next boy in a plastic bubble, I was sure he was going to be instrumental in bringing about my big break.

The week before the “Institute” finished I received a call at the camp. (This was before cell phones so a call from the outside world was a big deal.) I had no idea who this could be from but as a good Jewish boy thought for sure someone had died. No one had died; the call was from a director who I had done “The Artful Dodger” for in the musical, Oliver at a local theatre in Arizona a couple years prior who was calling to see if I would go to Ohio for the rest of the summer to play “Barnaby” in Hello Dolly. Would I? I was practically packed before I hung up the phone and the idea that it was also going to give me my union theatre Equity card was merely icing on the cake. The show was put up in four days and I had never been a part of a show that was put up so quickly. I loved it. The only set back to the summer in Ohio was that the director fancied himself a hairdresser of sorts and decided to dye my very dark brown hair a bright fire engine red! With my olive complexion I looked like a complete freak when I wasn’t in makeup and under the stage lighting. But I was employed and I was Equity, who could ask for anything more? Although most of the cast was from New York and told me that I needed to move to the city immediately after the run of the show ended, I had the disease manager waiting for me in LA and so it would come to pass that I left Ohio for LA to be a quirky best friend or a kid dying of a disease – neither would end up happening.

I was a young looking 18 when I moved to LA and this was supposedly going to be great for my career. You see, the child labor laws didn’t apply to an eighteen year old so they could cast you as a fourteen year old and work you like a dog. But what I soon discovered was that I was too young looking for adult roles and when I went up for a kid part I looked too old. It was what I called the “Grease Syndrome.” Take the movie, Grease. Everyone was in their thirties so it was believable that they were all in high school (well, sort of), well I looked too young to be in “high school” with the thirty year olds and next to real high school kids I looked too old. What this translated to was that I wasn’t going to get any work.

I worked in a Hollywood memorabilia store and dreamed of being on some of the posters I was selling. I lived with two guys from high school. One had been the President of the Student Council (the one who beat me out for Tommy Djilas in Music Man) and the other was a football star who dabbled in theatre in high school. They were both twenty-one and straight. The day we moved into our rented house in Pasadena, the football star was watching Monday Night Football on one of his unpacked boxes, the Student Council President was hanging pictures of himself in his room and I was putting down shelf paper in the kitchen. Get the picture? They ate me out of house and home. I was driving an hour each way to a minimum wage job living on a Tab cola and a Snickers bar a day, trying to go to bed early so as to not allow the hunger to gnaw too much at my stomach and to get up early enough to make the drive back to work the next day. And although it sounds bleak (and believe me it was) I just kept telling myself it would make for a great story on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson when I went on. No, that didn’t happen either.

The big Hollywood manager did actually take my call when I called him and even allowed me to come to his Beverly Hills home to do a scene for him. I was thrilled beyond belief. I got my Student Council President roommate to do a scene with me from the play Tea and Sympathy. The manager told me it was too gay of a scene (literally) and that I needed acting lessons. He made an appointment for me with one of the leading acting teachers in LA. The acting teacher decided that my credits up to that point did not warrant me being allowed to be in any of his classes, even the most beginning level. The manager told me I needed to get an agent. The agents told me I couldn’t get an agent without booking my first job. You couldn’t book a job without an agent and so after about a year I went back to Arizona, a registered failure where I would work in retail and dabble in community theatre. But I wasn’t done trying in LA, no I was convinced that I could still be Scott Baio if only given the chance. But that’s a tale for another day….tomorrow’s installment in fact. The show business – the Los Angeles Years – Don’t Get Me Started!

Tomorrow’s Installment – The Show Business – The Los Angeles Years Take Two

The Show Business – The High School Years – Don’t Get Me Started!

My brother (who is twenty-two months older than I am) is brilliant and such was the case even back in grade school. So it was a struggle that every time a teacher would see my last name on a roster they thought they were getting a smarty but really only got a kid with a smart mouth when it came to me. Nowhere was this more evident than when I got my brother’s old fifth grade teacher. The day I walked into that class he was so excited to have another Rosenzweig that he immediately scheduled me to go to “gifted class” that was every Thursday all day for a chosen few. At the end of that year I was tested and it was discovered that I had about as much business being in a “gifted” class as being a star athlete. So when the time came for me to go to high school I decided on a different public school instead of the one where my brother was currently attending. The school I chose was not a performing arts high school but it may as well have been one. They did six to seven shows a year with two musicals included. Heaven! The Show Business – The High School Years – Don’t Get Me Started!

I had learned that the head of the theatre department at the school had a summer workshop so I made sure that the summer before my freshman year I was a part of it so that I could not only meet some of the kids who went to the high school and would be at the workshop but so I could also meet the man who I was sure would want me to star in everything immediately upon walking on campus my first day. The show for the summer workshop was The Music Man and you paid to get in so everyone was cast. I would have several call backs for the role of Tommy Djilas (who was the young hooligan in the show) but eventually lost it to a boy who I would later be roommates with in Los Angeles. Although I was a bit heartbroken, I put on my overalls and even had a few featured dance bits. I was sure that this was just “paying my dues” and the next show the director did I would most definitely be the star.

The first day of high school I’ve written about before. I made the monumental mistake of wearing a green satin jacket that had the word, “OZ” on the back…yes, as in “The Wizard Of…” As if the kids at the school couldn’t sniff out that I was “different” shall we say, this jacket said, “Please beat me up” all over it, with the “O” in “OZ” creating the perfect bulls eye. And so it began that I started my career in high school in a garbage can…literally. But an amazing thing happened, although I was being called “fag” every day (sometimes several times in the day) and was shoved into lockers, when I would turn down that hall that housed the theatre classrooms, I suddenly was transformed, I was popular. I had been working on stage, television and in movies since the age of six so I had more experience than most kids in the high school on my first day when it came to performing and they wanted to hear all the “real theatre” stories (which I easily embellished for entertainment purposes). The performing arts were a place where I felt safe and that allowed me to find myself. I’m always so sad to hear that art classes are the first to be cut from a school when there’s a need for budget cuts. Sure there are kids who fit in, who are popular, the athletic and/or cheerleader types who can take advantage of those programs that never seem to lose funding but for some of us, we’d never have made it through without a place to express ourselves and be ourselves whether it be the performing or visual arts.

The first show I was cast in at the school was Fiddler On The Roof, I was to be one of the Bottle Dancers in the big wedding scene. But ‘twas not to be because by that time I had an agent who was sending me up for roles in television and movies and I was cast as the stand in for a movie that would become one of the worst films ever made. For four weeks I was “on the set” at all hours of the day and night waiting for them to call for the “second team.” For those of you who don’t know a “stand in” does just that, stands in for the star. They have similar coloring, height, etc. so that the crew can light the scene. You don’t appear in the movie because often you look too much like the actor playing the role. The film was about a young boy who is seduced by his maid or something and then blackmailed by the chauffeur who allows the boy to think he’s killed the maid. It starred Howard Hesseman from WKRP in Cincinnati and Sylvia Kristel. The boy in the movie was fired after a week or so and was replaced with the boy who ended up being fired from the television show Mama’s Family after the first year but thank God I looked enough like both boy 1 and boy 2. I didn’t get fired and I eventually did get one big scene. I got to play the maid’s body in a garment bag that they put in a freezer. So this was show biz? By the time I got back to high school it was time for Fiddler On The Roof to open. I was so jealous sitting out in the audience that night. I should have been on that stage I thought. I thought they should have let me back in at the last moment because of course I was a “quick study” and surely the show needed a pro like me, right? Apparently not and here’s an interesting footnote to my illustrious career, I never ended up doing a production of Fiddler even though it’s probably the show I’m most “right” for being and looking Jewish as I do. Go figure.

High school was a lesson in duality. Trying to keep my being beaten up life and onstage life separate, I would purposely plan to meet people in the theatre hall, not on the campus at large and although I was frightened every time I would step on the stage in high school that someone would scream, “FAG” from the back of the audience, it never happened. But it didn’t matter because the fear was always there. The day I found out I was cast as the lead in George M (a musical about the life of George M. Cohan, a role made famous by my idol, Joel Grey) it was my senior year and I remember that we went off campus for lunch. At the Burger King a boy came up and punched me in the face, I went back to school with my red punched in nose and as the list went up showing I’d been cast as the lead the pain seemed to subside. Ah, Doctor Theatre to the rescue.

Interestingly enough when I went back to my twenty-five year reunion I had a bit of an epiphany. Several men and women came up to me telling me that they were so jealous of my ability to just be myself in high school. For them, this meant that I was “out” in the eighties while on campus. (Funny, I thought I’d hid it all those years.) Some apologized to me for something they had done to me (to be honest with you, I didn’t even recognize the ones who made the big apologies, I guess because most of the time it was just a screamed name as I walked by and I was trying so hard to act as if they must be talking about someone else, complete with turn around and that “Who me? Can’t be.” Look on my face) But perhaps the best comment was made by someone who didn’t even attend the reunion. He has gone on to do some amazing writing including the hit television series Judging Amy. I heard from a mutual friend that he said, “Whatever happened to Scott? I always thought he was going to have Matthew Broderick’s career.” So did I! The Show Business – The High School Years – Don’t Get Me Started!

Tomorrow’s installment – The LA Years!

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The Show Business – The Early Years – Don’t Get Me Started!

When you write every day (trying desperately to be liked and not lose your audience because they come to your site and don’t see something new – even if this is only in my head) you tend to sometimes write things that seem to be written with only the criteria that there be something written to fill the space. Now for the most part this works for me as I have been designed for what I call, “Short Attention Span Theatre” I am not someone who does well reading full novels filled with long chapters. I remember the first Anne Rice vampire novel I read (due to the peer pressure of everyone around me having read it) I remember there were long passages describing the surroundings like the curtains, it bored the crap out of me but I’m a “once I start it I have to finish it” kind of guy so finish it I did. Well this past weekend I got the idea that for this week I would write something different, I would write an episodic blog that would fill the week with related storylines that could eventually all be put together as one big chapter for that book I’ll never write. But what to write about? What would be the frame that would hold my digital pictures that would appear for a day and then change? Well it was rather easy, it would need to be personal and need to be something where I had a lot of material to choose from. I started in theater at the age of six hoping to make it to Broadway and it only took me to my thirties to get to dinner theater (the lowest form of show business). So welcome to a day, a couple days or a week of The Show Business – The Early Years – Don’t Get Me Started!

I don’t know what started me thinking I could be in show business other than the fact that from the time I could stand, I would stand in front of the television either singing or dancing (much to my brother’s dismay) trying to get everyone’s attention. In kindergarten we did a presentation for our parents that was titled, “When I Grow Up” and was to be a peek at what we thought we would do when we became adults. While there were plenty doctors and nurses (girls dressed in all white with comfortable shoes) and even one boy who made a hat out of construction paper that had a giraffe on it (he wanted to be a zoo keeper), I was wearing a white dinner jacket, shirt and tie and black pants with patent leather shoes. I was the emcee for the event and even rendered my own version of “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head” (singing over the voice of the original on the record – this was before Karaoke versions of songs were available) complete with umbrella twirling. I’m not sure if there was a specific career in mind other than the fact that I wanted and was being groomed to be one thing, a star! My mother had raised me on it from an early age. You see, from an early age growing up in Philadelphia she had hidden movie magazines in her closet and dreamed of going to such romantic places such as California and Las Vegas – playgrounds for the celebrity set. So I guess that’s where I got the idea to be in show business originally but it wasn’t long before I was clipping out audition notices from the newspaper and begging my parents for an agent!

The first real role I got that wasn’t in a school I was attending was the role of “Tiny Tim” in a production of A Christmas Carol at Arizona State University. We had moved to Arizona in 1971, I was seven years old and I remember going into the audition being quite nervous. The director was a kind looking man who to my recollection looked a bit like Pat O’Brien from the old black and white movies I lived to watch. A shorter version of the actor but that unmistakable Irish, short man with rosy cheeks and a kind face. I don’t remember what I did for the audition. I mean let’s face it, when you’re Tiny Tim all you have to do is look sickly, walk on crutches and deliver the one line, “God bless us, everyone.” But whatever I did in the audition it must have been enough as the director came out and told my parents and me that although he was casting his son in the role, he felt my audition was so good that he had decided to split the role between his son and me. Wow, I thought that was a true testament to my talents (when in hindsight he probably just didn’t want his son to miss so much school for the rehearsals and performances). So alas, it would come to pass that I would make everyone in my house crazy constantly saying at every meal and every chance I got, “GOD bless us, everyone.” “God BLESS us, everyone.” “God Bless US, everyone.” Before finally settling on “God bless us (dramatic pause) EVERYONE.”

To be around a bunch of college kids at the age of seven was a unique experience. You had to act like an adult because everyone around you was taking the whole thing very serious. I liked the environment and it would make for a work ethic that remains with me to this day. While I loved being on stage and hearing an audience applaud, I loved the rehearsals more. The working really hard to get it right, the inside jokes, the closeness you get to a group of people because you’re with each other so many hours every day and having all that work pay off by an audience’s applause was just icing on the cake. I learned a lot about theatre from that first production. I learned everything from stories about “theatre ghosts” that haunt theatres to putting on makeup (heady stuff for a kid that was dying to get into show business). I cried when it was over, giving me my other lesson about theatre. It doesn’t last, it only exists for that brief period of time and even though later on there was the invention of video cameras, it doesn’t capture the thrill and immediacy of live theatre.

I continued on doing theatre around the area, was in a kids singing group that sang for over 200 performances (one being for President Nixon prior to the ugliness) and at around ten I was lucky enough to be cast in a pilot for a new television series they were filming in Arizona. I would be one of the kids from an old western town waiting for the new schoolmarm to arrive, thing was that everyone thought it was going to be a woman but it turned out to be a man (Jack Cassidy and since Dick Van Dyke was filming his show at the time at the same studio I got to meet him too.)One scene had my “mother” scrubbing my ears getting me cleaned up for school as I lamented, “Can’t heard to learn if’n ya rub my ears off.” The pilot went exactly nowhere but for three weeks I was a television star (if only in my own mind). I remember the day I went back to grade school my mother had forgotten to give me a note so my home room teacher made me go to the nurse to get a note allowing me back into class. (I guess this was because the only possible explanation was that I had been sick while I’d been out in the teacher’s mind). The nurse (who hated me – for good reason that I’ll go into in a later entry) Mrs. Comfort (seriously this was her name) couldn’t get a hold of my parents so she wrote me a note to get me back into class (I still have it). On the note Mrs. Comfort wrote, “States he’s been making a movie.” The disbelief and disdain seem to leap from the 4x6 note even to this day. I loved it. The Show Business – The Early Years – Don’t Get Me Started!

Tomorrow’s Installment – The High School Years

You Don’t Have To Be Gay To Read Some Like It Scott! – Don’t Get Me Started!

When I first started my website and blogging I didn’t give much thought as to who my “audience” might be. The blogging came out of winning the contest to be the Ultimate Fan Blogger for Project Runway (season 3) so I think when I first started, the people who read my blog were those who were watching Project Runway. (In other words, women in their thirties to fifties and gay men) And although I think that’s a rather accurate assessment of who is looking at my site today too I always find it funny that when a straight man comments on one of my blogs they invariably start out with, “I’m not gay but…” You don’t have to be gay to read Some Like It Scott! – Don’t Get Me Started!

Don’t get me wrong, I’m dying to become one of those “must read” blogs that ends up getting a corporate sponsor. I want everyone to read the site and to pass it on to as many of their friends as humanly possible. I want to be the Jewish David Sedaris and the Anti-Perez Hilton. So whether you’re straight or not, I’ll take you. Sort of makes me feel like the Statue of Liberty, “Give me your poor your tired, (you’re not so poor, your very wealthy who want to give me money) your huddled masses (sitting at computers with Cheetos stained fingers reading my blogs) yearning to be (entertained) the not so wretched refuse of your teeming shore (provided it’s a soccer team without shirts…oh, different team, sorry). Send these the homo-less, tempest (Bledsoe) tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside a red door (Elizabeth Arden).”  Well you get the idea.

As I have as many straight friends as gay ones I do find it rather interesting the dynamic between straight and gay men. You see straight men (if I may reduce them to a complete stereotype) come in two categories when they meet a gay man. They either think you want to do them or they think you want them to do you. The thing is that after you talk to them for awhile what you both discover is that you have more in common than you think and for the most part you’re just talking about an oil change (with no double entendre attached).

When I was growing up I always had more female friends than men. I guess you could chalk this up to my being a gay of a certain age who found it easier to relate to girls because they had the same goal in mind as me (to find a great man, get married and be supported the rest of my life). To be honest that was the mistake I made in my first real relationship with a man. I thought, “Wow, I’m finally Sadie, Sadie, Married Lady.” (See the musical Funny Girl for that reference) What I thought was that he was going to go out and earn the living and I would give dinner parties (I’m Jewish so that would really mean coordinating the caterer). Ouch! In retrospect no wonder it didn’t work. What most people don’t realize is that in a man/man relationship (and in a lot of opposite sex relationships) you are both working, there’s no one staying home and thus the reason most gays get cats instead of kid-dens.

For years I’ve felt as though there was a straight boys club that would never have me as a member. Late in life I discovered a group of straight guys who I work with whom I also consider my friends. One day my boss and the guys decided that we needed a day out of the office and that we should all go shooting. I had never shot a gun in my life (much less screamed, “Pull” and tried to hit a moving target) but suddenly there I was in the great outdoors with a rifle in my hand. These guys were not making fun of me, handling me with kid gloves or treating me any differently than anyone else that was there, even though I was the only gay in the group. It was a very moving experience for me because for the first time in my life I felt something I hadn’t found from my girlfriends or even my gay friends, what I discovered was that I was a man among men (and when you grow up being called a “fag” every day that’s something you never think you’ll be). I guess somewhere in the back of my head all that name calling had sunk in so deep that I didn’t consider myself a “real” man until that day (at age 44).

So while I admit that some of my blogs are not for the straight faint of heart, I get excited when I see a comment from a straight guy who reads me, even if it comes with the disclaimer, “I’m not gay but…”  But let me assure them, you don’t have to be gay to read Some Like It Scott! – Don’t Get Me Started!