The 30 Minute Seder For Passover? Come On Now Jews! – Don’t Get Me Started!

I’m not the most religious person in the world. I consider myself one of those high and mighty types that state, “I’m more spiritual than religious” whatever the hell that means. I think it means that you sort of follow religious beliefs when it’s convenient (sort of like rappers thanking Jesus for winning an award and then expecting Jesus to come visit them when they’re in jail). Anyway growing up we knew we were Jewish (mostly by the way people treated us. I’ve actually had people say, “I never met a real Jew before” as they looked me up and down as if I might be packing the ten commandments or an adding machine under my shirt or something or “My dad says I can’t play with you anymore because you’re dirty Jews.”) my brother and I were both Bar Mitzvah at the age of thirteen, we went to synagogue for the high holy days and we never had a Christmas tree in our house but went for the Hanukkah candles and telling all the kids in the neighborhood that we were better than them because we got eight nights of gifts without anyone having to come down our chimney or eat our cookies. That said there has always been one Jewish holiday that has been my favorite which I observe whole-heartedly and that, my friends is Passover. So I was a bit distressed to see in last week’s Sunday New York Times magazine an ad for a thirty minute Seder. The 30 minute Seder for Passover? Come on now Jews! – Don’t Get Me Started!

For those of you who don’t know, Passover is the celebration of the Jews’ bondage (how we love to suffer and celebrate our suffering) and their ultimate release from slavery in Egypt back in the day of the Pharaoh. At this holiday we all sit around a table and re-read the story with our family which is called the Seder. We read from books called, Haggadahs with one person leading the Seder and the rest taking turns reading aloud. It’s sort of a call and response thing in your own home. There is symbolic eating (we’re Jews, we’re always going to find a way to get food in there) – bitter herbs to remind us of the bitter times and charoset which is a combination of chopped up apples and wine to remind us of the sweet things that happened – Jews are all about the balance. And as the story is told and you look around the table at your family, I’ve always found myself feeling very fortunate that my family is together, healthy and can manage to stay in the same room with one another for hours on end without any drama. And while some years we’re unable to be together, this year we will travel not to the holy land, as the Haggadah instructs us to say about where we’ll spend next Passover but to a much holier place, San Diego where my entire family will be around the table for the first time in many Passovers.

I’ve attended Seders with other portions of my extended family through the years. My uncle is a rabbi (and is now a flight attendant, no, I’m not kidding) and for years when I was not near my immediate family I would spend it with their side of the family. He would try to do the entire Seder with his New York family goofing around, not paying attention and generally being rather disrespectful as they would trade eye rolls and throw rolls across the table at one another. Undaunted my uncle would do the entire Seder by the letter.

The deal is that a good portion of the Seder is read prior to the meal so as people get hungry they tend to want to rush the reading and get to the eating, I get it. But there’s something about reading the entire story the way that it has been done for decades that just seems as though doing less would be disrespectful of the Jews who suffered not only at the hands of the Pharaoh but of those who could not partake in this or any Jewish holiday as they were starved in concentration camps or live in places even today where freedom of religion is not an option. Am I overly sentimental that I feel the weight of the Jewish community past and present more during Passover? Am I less of a Jew because I don’t think this everyday of the year? I don’t know. But I do know that while nothing in the world can happen fast enough for me, like heating things in a microwave oven getting impatient that it’s taking a full minute or tapping my foot when someone doesn’t respond to my text or email in five seconds, this is the one time of year that I’m willing to take the time to turn off my phone and do what my ancestors have done for years without trying to speed it along. Am I unfairly judging the people who do the 30 minute Seder, I guess and I also guess that the real important thing is that whether you tell the story in 30 minutes or three hours, at least you’re taking the time to be with your family and tell the story regardless of how abbreviated. So as to not incur any guilt for knocking a 30 Minute Seder idea I’ve never tried causing a Jew’s business somewhere to possibly suffer…here’s the website to order your 30 minute Haggadahs…and yes, you can download it so you still have time to get it before Passover! http://www.30minuteseder.com/?gclid=CJKZt66tz6ACFQhbbQodfDdC0Q

The 30 minute Seder for Passover? Come on now Jews! – Don’t Get Me Started!

Some More Some Like It Scott Passover Blogs:

http://hubpages.com/hub/It_Is_Passover_So_Jew_Eat_Bread_Yet

http://hubpages.com/hub/Passover_Easter_Christians

Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjYh1bksneU

The Dementors Are Out To Get Me! – Don’t Get Me Started!

 A recent weekend of watching mind numbing television program found me landed on a Harry Potter movie marathon. For those of you who know nothing about this series of books or movies you obviously have been living under a rock or are one of those, “I’m not interested in anything that everyone else is interested in” type of people. Okay, so the Dementors in the Harry Potter books and movies are the ones who guard the wizard prison. They’re cloaked figures that sort of look like flying grim reapers. The thing about the Dementors is that not only can they apply the Dementor’s kiss (which sucks your very soul right out of your body) but when they’re even flying anywhere around you, they suck all the joy out of life or as one of the characters who encounters the Dementors puts it, “I felt like I would never be joyful again.” Well, I hear you. Although I can’t see them, I’m now convinced that the Dementors are out to get me! – Don’t Get Me Started!

I’ve never been one of those people who play the victim. What’s more I can’t stand anyone else who tries to play the victim. The whole, “Poor me, look what’s happened to me, I don’t deserve this.” And in some cases it’s followed up with, “I’m giving my problems to Jesus.” Well, I don’t know all that much about Jesus but it seems to me that people are just expecting way too much from this guy that died about a billion years ago for your sins. (Notice I say your sins and not mine because I’m pretty sure that Jesus doesn’t want anything to do with my sins, contrary to the people who would try to convince me otherwise and honestly I feel pretty free of sin on the whole or at least sin as it’s categorized by the Jesus groupies.) The thing is that anyone who plays the victim is also a real drag to be around (and I’m not talking in a fake eyelashes and wig sort of way). Who wants to listen or read someone else’s whining?

That said the Scott pity party is about to commence. I’m going to go completely against everything you just read. WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! It’s not that I’m feeling particularly sorry for myself as much as it is that I’m just feeling as though there is a cloaked figure behind me sucking all the joy out of my life. I don’t know that I’m a big bundle of joy every day but for the past several days it seems as though no matter what I do it doesn’t really give me any happiness. Could this be the dreaded mid-life crisis? (I doubt I’ll be living to be ninety years old so perhaps this should be categorized as the late-mid-life crisis or mid-life review as I classified it in an earlier blog entry http://hubpages.com/hub/Dont-Think-Of-It-As-A-Mid-Life-Crisis--Its-More-A-Mid-Life-Review) The thing is that I used to laugh a lot more than I do currently and I used to just generally be more jolly than jaded but as time marches on it seems as though any happiness is sort of manufactured by me sort of like that cheese that you spray out of a can. You know it’s not really cheese, it’s just a bunch of chemicals and food coloring meant to look like and replicate the sort of taste of cheese but it’s so much easier than slicing real cheese that you can’t help but push your finger on the button and allow the orange/yellow gunk to create a rosette on your cracker, replacing the real cheese in your life. I wonder if that was the only cheese you ate if you would eventually never know that there was something better out there or I guess I should say gouda outta there?

I’ve never been one to skip or tiptoe through the tulips but as I look around at people who seem to be behind a glass wall to me in a world that doesn’t include me, laughing and joking with their friends in the Starbucks or at the store I can’t help but feel as though that was my past life not my present or future one. And though I’m usually willing to accept responsibility for my own actions and happiness this time it just feels as though there’s something more at work here, more forces of evil just off my shoulder running almost at my pace to try and make me miserable. No need to get on the Zoloft yet but I sure wish I had a wand and knew how to produce a good Patronus spell to get rid of what I can only assume are the Dementors that are out to get me! – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Maybe Tiger And Jesse James Have The Right Idea About Monogamy And The Rest Of Us Are Wrong – Don’t Get Me Started!

You can’t turn on a television or computer without immediately seeing something about Tiger Woods and Jesse James’ recent indiscretions. We are a society that can’t get enough of someone else’s suffering. During 9/11 we convinced ourselves that it was happening to us personally even if we were miles away, Katrina, we felt the same way we just didn’t want to smell the stagnant water. Haiti, Anna Nicole, Michael Jackson, whether they’re natural disasters or manmade we’re all about watching as much of it as possible and then having the media beat it to death. We make the person with the most tragic story from the natural disasters into heroes and with the celebrity variety everyone who ever knew that person comes out of the woodwork to give an interview. But hurricanes aside I started thinking about the two recent infidelity scandals and I couldn’t help but wonder, maybe Tiger and Jesse James have the right idea about monogamy and the rest of us are wrong – Don’t Get Me Started!

Whenever I talk about my spouse of twenty-one years, I always follow it up with, “Yes, twenty-one years in a gay monogamous relationship which is the equivalent of dog years so that means we’ve been together something like four hundred years.” It always gets a laugh. I think that I do this because I want everyone to know that all gays are not sluts and more to the point that I somehow would like to be rewarded for my monogamous efforts (since the government isn’t giving me anything in the way of marriage or tax cuts). But the truth of the matter is that the only reason I think monogamy is important is because my parents who have been married for forty some years thought it was important and that’s what they taught me.

 For generations we’ve all based our lives on the bible or the traditions of our family that have been passed down from generation to generation but there are other things that are passed down from these two places such as discrimination and judgment from the religious right who claim it’s from the bible and sexual and drug abuse that have a history of being handed down from generation to generation. Sure you can find good and bad in any situation but my point is that I wonder if the bible and our previous generations got it wrong about monogamy the same way they got it wrong about eating shellfish, homosexuality and never inviting your second cousin to family functions. Are we bound by a code of living that is really a fantasy made up by some high-horse types from a generation long since dead and we’re still paying for their opinions rather than the facts? When my mother thought she was going to be a writer she would say to me, “I need a best seller, you know like the bible. Let’s face it, it has everything in it, sex, burning bushes and scandal. Who’s to say that someone a long time ago didn’t just write the best novel ever written?” I love my mother for a lot of reasons and this thinking is one of them.

You can argue that God created the sexually transmitted disease to keep us monogamous or punish us when we’re not but then you could also wonder why God made the condom, antibiotics and the free clinic if this is your thinking. I’m not saying we should all be walking around with our schlongs and schlongettes out shtooping everything that moves but I also don’t see the harm in a little something something between consenting adults if that’s what makes you happy and you have an agreement with yourself and your spouse if you have one. For me, it’s like in high school when my girlfriend (yes, I had a few and even sealed the deal with women in my lifetime) my girlfriend in high school kept pushing me to push it into her and all I could think of was the films we’d seen in Child Development class of childbirth and also thinking that with my luck I would get this girl pregnant and then be tied to this nutbag the rest of my life. Needless to say I declined her comely offers and I’m glad I “saved” myself.

For me I couldn’t take the guilt of having an affair and to be honest there’s something about being with my guy that suits me just fine in that department. But I’m not going to judge my friends who are sluts (just want to hear the gory details so that I can live vicariously through them).

So what if we collectively decided that monogamy was for the individual to decide and none of our collective business as a so-called society? Think of all the money, time and television air that we would save by not caring who Bill Clinton is getting blown by in the oval office, by not allowing women (and their ex-husbands such as in the Jesse James case) to clutter our televisions self promoting for simply having sex with someone famous. In my day that was called a groupie, not someone who needed a Gloria Allred to get them on every television show known to man. And if we stop caring so much about this state of holy monogamy, maybe just maybe those of us who are monogamous will get off of our high horses and stop acting superior to those who are free spirited enough to not be monogamous. We aren’t superior because we only have sex with the same person we’re simply making a choice, just like the sluts should be able to make a choice. I’m just saying, maybe Tiger and Jesse James have the right idea about monogamy and the rest of us are wrong – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Can Only Lesbians Be Talk Show Hosts? – Don’t Get Me Started!

As the landscape of talk show hosts becomes more lesbian friendly (since the days of Rosie coming out) I began to wonder why we gay men can’t get our act on television. Can only lesbians be talk show hosts? – Don’t Get Me Started!

All one has to do is catch one episode of The Graham Norton Show on BBC America to know that a gay man can not only host a talk show successfully but can innovate the entire genre. However when Comedy Central bought his show to the states for one season success eluded him and he went back to Britain. Was he too gay? Was it that he let his guests drink? What was it that made him not as successful as the lesbian Americans? And then one has to ask just how successful the lesbians are at the moment.

While no one can deny that Ellen DeGeneres has found a whole new career in her talk show style of friendly, never a bad word about anyone, let’s just dance approach I can tell you that as much as I love Wanda Sykes as a comedian (and have for years) I can’t get through a single episode of her Saturday night talk show. Not only does Wanda Sykes seem uncomfortable in her surroundings, she does not help herself out with her dull sidekicks. One a comedian I guess who finds himself much funnier than anyone watching does and in a shocker to not only the gay community, Wanda Sykes has found the dullest drag queen in recorded history to be on her show. I doubt this show will last and while I try from time to time to watch it, I never make it through an entire show. Love you Wanda, but you’re just not good in this genre and you’ve surrounded yourself with the wrong people.

Which gets me back to the whole idea of gay men and wondering why we don’t have our own talk show? I get that Rosie appealed to the daytime stay at home Moms who wanted to make craft projects and that Ellen with her non-threatening approach to just “happy” guests and topics does too but I really think that there are some gays out there who could offer the same thing either in daytime or appeal to the masses in late night with a raunchier show. For daytime I’d like to pitch Nate Berkus. He is perhaps the dullest gay in the world but that’s why I think he might work for daytime. Besides having the Oprah Empire behind him, he is someone that women with large abdomens can sit at home and dream he was straight all while he tells them how to spruce up their bedroom with Nate Berkus bedding. I think this may be in the works all ready. Oprah had him do interviews backstage at the Oscars which was almost as painful to watch as the anorexic Guiliana spew her own brand of boredom style of interviewing on the red carpet. Don’t be surprised to see him get his own show and remember that you saw it here first. The other obvious choice is Neil Patrick Harris who is another really dull gay that people can’t help but remember as the adorable Doogie Howser and not a full-fledged man who has sex with other men.

For late night, we’ll need an edgier gay that isn’t afraid of being the “gay go to guy” for the straight world. He’ll need to do segments on questions straight guys have always wanted to ask gays (of course the straight guys will be dressed in drag to protect their identities – this will be cheaper than pixelating their faces and electronically altering their voices) and at the same time he’ll need to appeal to women and crack whores who are up at that time of night. I don’t know that this gay exists in prime time all ready but a tour of the gay comedian circuit and you may be able to find someone. Or perhaps we can tap an ex-athlete who has come out because straight guys and women are always fascinated by these guys. Whoever he is, he’ll need to be hot so don’t even think about some milquetoast like Ryan Seacrest for the job.

I’m not sure if America can handle the gay men other than as secondary characters on a show like Modern Family but we’ve got to start trying. They like the lesbians because it’s a straight guy fantasy and let’s face it white straight male executives for the most part still run the networks and our country. And if you ask why we need gay men on television the answer is simple, we’re hilarious and not just to the gays. So while I try and get my GSN (Gay Shopping Network) off the ground will someone please start working on getting a male gay talk show host on the air? Thanks in advance. Can only lesbians be talk show hosts? – Don’t Get Me Started!

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I Forgot How Great It Is To Walk – Don’t Get Me Started!

When I lived in Philadelphia I walked all the time. When I go to New York I walk everywhere but having grown up on the west coast where everything is driving, not walking distance and now living back on the west coast I completely forgot. I forgot how great it is to walk – Don’t Get Me Started!

I would venture to say that one of the reasons we’re all so fat as a nation is because once we all moved out of the cities and moved into sprawling suburbia, things got more and more spread out until finally we all decided that we couldn’t go around the corner to get to a Starbucks unless we drove there. I admit it, I’ve become one of those people and my mid-section can prove it.

So this past Sunday I had to take my car into the shop for a tire rotation and balance. The tire place is about a mile and a half from my house. I decided that instead of staying and waiting for the car (it was going to be two hours) I would walk home and wait for it to be finished there. And as I started my walk home I discovered just how much I’ve missed the whole walking experience. I think that we who are in our cars tend to look at “walkers” out here as some sort of lower class citizen. I’m ashamed to admit it but I’m a car snob. Now there are times when I believe that my snobbery is warranted. I saw a young woman at a bus stop here at around 1:30am with her child in a stroller. What the hell was she doing out at this hour with her small child? My spouse chastised me and told me that perhaps this girl was living a life not unlike Precious from the movie (based on the book Push by Sapphire – boy did she sign a good deal that they have to always mention the book and her name when they talk about that movie). And although this girl may very well be living a life where she had no choice but to be out that late with her small child, I have to say that on the whole people here in Vegas are the worst parents in the world. Go to any 11pm showing of a movie and you’re bound to see at least two families with small kids in tow. I don’t get it. Sorry, I just think that kids should be in bed by a certain time of night but I guess I don’t know what I’m talking about since I don’t have any kids. But back to the real idea behind this blog.

As I was walking I had to cross a major street. I could feel the car waiting to turn right disgusted that I was walking and in their way to get immediately on their way. Then I looked up to find that the walk/don’t walk light across the intersection was one of those “countdown” indicators. From the minute I stepped into the intersection I felt like I was on a competition reality show or worse, back in grade school being timed for things like the fifty yard dash or mile by my “coach.” Before I even took my first step I saw on the indicator that I only had a total of 23 seconds to complete the task of getting to the other side. Now I’m a fast walker, faster than anyone I know. I don’t know if I’m a fast walker because I did live in a city once or because I’m short and trying to make up for having short legs but whatever the reason few can keep my pace when it comes to walking, not even my six foot spouse. But as I started my trek across the large intersection while I felt confident that I would get across in plenty of time, I started thinking about the elderly or people who don’t walk as fast as me. What do they do? How do they get across in 23 seconds? We’re not talking city blocks here we’re talking enormous four lane intersections created by the people who created planned communities and wide roads. While I loved having the four lanes to dart around slower or texting drivers when you have to walk across those lanes and you’re being timed, you wonder just why there need to be so many lanes. Funny how quickly your perspective can change, isn’t it?

As I walked I discovered that being a “walker” was kind of a cool thing. There was something green on parts of the ground, wow, grass I think it’s called. There were trees that you could actually see the bark on. There was some but not a lot of litter, people who litter should all be destroyed or at the very least go to an island where there are nothing but the litterers and live in their own filth. Honestly, I think that people who litter are the most inconsiderate and dumb people on the planet. Feeling the air whoosh past me I thought, “Hmmm, maybe this is why those runner people run.” For what lasted less than a second I thought that I might be able to be one of those runners then I thought better of it. Bad knees from my years of dance and not that wild about the outdoors deemed this not a good idea for me. But as I walked I felt better than I ever felt when I drove somewhere and it didn’t take long for me to realize I forgot how great it is to walk – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Am I The Only One Who Doesn’t Care What Tiger Woods Is Doing Every Minute Of Every Day? – Don’t Get Me Started!

This week I went to lunch with some of the guys from the office. We went to a Chili’s and sat in the bar, nothing glamorous. Not surprising the televisions were on the several different ESPN channels. While anyone with sports knowledge might think that March Madness (whatever the hell that is, I know it has something to do with basketball, college and a chance for grown men to once again enter the world of fantasy as they “pick their teams” and talk more incesantley about it than gay men talk about well…um, men but whatever) the point is that I could have taken the basketball talk and viewing but then it seemed that every channel went to a bunch of anchors behind desks talking like excited girls once talked but now text one another. “Tiger is coming back for the Masters” one anchor said while the other one put his hand to his ear, not as if he was an old time radio singer but to hear how many days away that would be from the fact checker in his earpiece so that he could announce the countdown to Tiger. Are you kidding me? Am I the only one who doesn’t care what Tiger Woods is doing every minute of every day? – Don’t Get Me Started!

After the anchors went on and on about Tiger Woods from the start of his career to what sandwich he might be eating at this very moment, a regurgitation of the entire scandal, they then played the actual interview he gave with an added soundtrack playing under it with a mournful instrumentation that would make you think you were watching a tear jerker movie produced by the most skilled Hollywood director, editor and sound man. Oh wait, that’s probably who worked on it for them. Well, expect to see them nominated for this coverage for either an Emmy or at the very least an ESPY when they award themselves with the largest pat on their own back ever given. It may sound crazy but come on, ever since The National Enquirer put their hat in the ring for a Nobel Prize for the coverage of the John Edwards scandal, anything is possible (and yes, for those of you who don’t know, they actually think they deserve a Nobel Prize for journalism for exposing a politician’s sexual indiscretions – I hope they win, what an after party that’ll be, right? <He said with eyes a rolling>)

I originally blamed them going on and on about Tiger Woods on the 24 hour news cycle. When you have to produce that many hours of so-called “news” even entertainment news you’re bound to repeat yourself and to make a bunch of more nothing out of what started as a little nothing but to see these anchors try to sell it like they were giving you news about some hard hitting news event made me think that everyone on television these days is more like a QVC host than anything else. There was a time when I felt as though people were reporting the news but now it’s all about the anchor’s opinion. And I guess the real problem is that I don’t respect any of their opinions. Does anyone care what any of those slobs sitting around the table on The Insider screaming at the camera and one another with their stupid opinions about the latest celebrity gaffe have to say? I don’t. And the same can be said of the local and several news anchors on my nightly news as well.

The thing is that we’re a country that loves to build them up so we can tear them down. I for one don’t give a crap about how much money Tiger makes. It doesn’t make him a role model. Role models are made more from moral fiber and fortitude than bank accounts or hitting a ball with a stick. We allow celebrities and the news anchors who sell the celebrities to us like vermeil gold necklaces on television to tell us who our role models should be and the sad part is that most of us are standing in line validating this as the way to fame, fortune and worrying about who’s hot and who is not. But just like the necklace that was at a price too good to be true, it’s going to turn from that lovely gold color to a gross tarnished color sooner than we expected so we’ll put it in the drawer and chalk it up to not making a wise purchase. The same is true of celebrities whether they’re of the movie star, sports star or we don’t know why you’re even famous celebrities. We’ll love looking at them, hearing who their fucking and after a short period of time when their shiny gold coating wears off we’ll not only put them in a drawer and not care about them, we’ll try to ship them off to one of those places that gives you cash for gold, we don’t even want them in our house anymore forgetting why we ever wanted them in the first place and agreeing with the gold people when they tell us they’re of no value of all. That is until they end up dead from an overdose and then we’ll talk about how they had everything in the world and threw it all away when it was us who threw away our time and energy on the fantasy created by marketing executives at the cost of human lives for the so-called celebrity and brain numbing television as America sits on its collective couch getting even fatter in the brain on mental and actual food that fills but has no nutritional value. And then it’s on to the next shiny item. Maybe we’re really all just suffering from believing the marketing their selling us and ADD.

Look, I get it, Tiger Woods is an amazing golfer. But that’s it folks. Don’t try to make him some modern day God that needs to be worshipped. Don’t try to make him anything other than a man with some God given talent and a slave driver father who turned him into the star of the golf world that he has become. And if someone can tell me why the President is taking time out of his day to comment on this when he could be doing something important like repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell I’d sure like to hear why this is worth a Presidential quote. Am I the only one who doesn’t care what Tiger Woods is doing every minute of every day? – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Can Someone Explain To Me Why Saint Patrick’s Day Is A Holiday? – Don’t Get Me Started!

I’m going to go ahead and admit what I think a lot of people are too afraid to admit, Saint Patrick’s is a stupid holiday. I don’t get it. You can tell me all you want that it’s about celebrating the Irish or something but someone’s going to have to show me something more than what I see every year as the celebration of this holiday. Does green beer and a reason to get drunk out of your mind really celebrate the Irish or is that just Tuesday night here in Vegas for tourists? Can someone explain to me why Saint Patrick’s Day is a holiday? – Don’t Get Me Started!

I remember when I was a kid at school kids would say, “You’re not wearing green so I get to pinch you.” Every year I would look around, see nothing in my wardrobe that was green and then proudly go to school without a “wearing o’ the green” defying anyone to pinch me as I looked down my nose at them with a Tim Gunn fashion disapproval stare that would stop them cold. Sure, I think I liked the cookies that were in the shape of shamrocks covered in that chunky green sugar but other than that I had no interest in it. As I got older and people would say, “Where are you going for St. Patrick’s?” I would either make up excuses or a lie about where I was going. Now I’m in my forties and I don’t give a shit who knows just how stupid I think this holiday is and you’re going to have to do a bunch of talking to talk me out of my opinion.

For those of you who think I’m doing this due to the whole thing about gays fighting to get into the famous New York Saint Patrick’s parade but being denied I can assure you that this is not the case. In fact, I think we gays should have sat that dance out but that’s just my opinion. Oh yes, by all means let’s get ourselves into a parade where a bunch of drunken straight guys with their sequined green top hats looking like some sort of strange people you never met in the Emerald City in The Wizard of Oz slosh about the streets with their “Kiss Me I’m Irish” shirts on. Well, wait a minute, I just added a Wizard of Oz reference and drunk straight guys so that makes it somewhat gay, right? Maybe that’s why the gays wanted in. But if it’s just drunken straight guys parading the streets that’s what they invented Mardi Gras for isn’t it?

The thing that gets me about all of these holidays is that people try to convince me it’s about culture. Where’s the culture in green eggs and ham, Sam I O’am? Are we celebrating the end of the potato famine or the fact that thousands were killed in Ireland simply because they couldn’t agree on a religion? What exactly are we supposed to be celebrating here and is getting drunk the only thing we do for this supposed saintly holiday?

Religious groups attack Halloween every year but it seems to me that kids getting dressed up and going around trying to get candy seems like a more benign and happy holiday than the drunk drivers on St. Patrick’s day who will be killing all the wrong people (most drunk drivers survive the crash because their systems are so relaxed from the booze while the innocent people they hit are usually the ones who die). Halloween even makes more sense to me than the whole Jesus has risen again, let’s eat Peeps holiday. I think just like the local and federal governments are reviewing budgets and deciding on cuts that perhaps we need a holiday expert like Hallmark to get involved and get rid of a bunch of these holidays that just don’t make sense. Oh wait, just like government, Hallmark are the ones who came up with most of these holidays so how can they really police themselves? Crap, I just remembered I need to go buy someone something for Sweetest Day – whatever the hell that is and whatever the hell that is supposed to celebrate! Can someone explain to me why Saint Patrick’s Day is a holiday? – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Do You Have Any Idea How Exhausting It Is To Be A Gay? – Don’t Get Me Started!

I have to laugh when I read blogs (or comments to mine) that talk about gay being a choice that people make or that we gays should somehow just not make the choice to act on what is natural for us by being gay. The Christian Right would be okay if we would all be gay but just not do gay things or “acts” in the boudoir to be exact. They’d say okay to treating us like human beings if we would just lie about our sexuality like the breeding ground they’ve created for pedophile priests (who guess what? Most aren’t gay, they’re just mentally defective humans who want to get laid and don’t get that sleeping with children is unacceptable). Yeah, their system seems to be working out well for everyone. But what gets me is that every morning I have to wake up to read yet another headline about gays being discriminated against and it riles me up. Do you have any idea how exhausting it is to be gay? – Don’t Get Me Started!

Anyone who has read anything of mine knows that I am just fine with being gay. I embrace it whole-heartedly, accept that this is who I am and I decided a long time ago to not listen to anyone who told me that I should either not admit it or just “not be gay” – yeah, that’s going to happen. But what gets me are all the people who say that we shouldn’t talk about it. That’s right, there are so many people who say that the gays could get ahead more if they just didn’t talk so much about I don’t know, wanting equal rights I guess. Yeah, that seems like a good plan. These people always say, “If the gays weren’t so in your face all the time it would be easier to accept them. We don’t need to hear that you’re gay every minute of every day.” I disagree. I had this discussion with some co-workers last week. They asked me why Jews seem to have to tell you that they’re Jewish all the time. Here was my response, when I was five years old, a kid from our neighborhood that my brother and I had played with for quite some time came over to our house and said, “I can’t play with you anymore because my Dad says you’re dirty Jews.” I think the reason I tell people up front that I’m Jewish is based on this experience. Look, don’t play with me and then decide to hate me because I’m a Jew, I’m going to tell you right up front so that if you don’t want to work with me, do business with me or be around me in general you can make that call right away and not wait. The same thing goes with being gay for me. Although I grew up doing theatre where no one cared, when I joined corporate America I never even tried to hide my sexuality. If people didn’t accept me, that was on them to talk about behind my back or at the water cooler. While I wasn’t going to have a picture of my spouse on my desk (I find a bunch of personal stuff at someone’s desk just clutter) I wasn’t going to change the pronoun when talking about my spouse either. That can be exhausting enough but then when co-workers always come to you to ask if someone else at the company is gay it can get even more tiresome. My response has always been, “Let me check my gay registry tonight when I get home but I don’t know if they’ve updated it recently.”

This past week alone, Johnny Weir was turned down by Stars On Ice for not being “family friendly” but then they changed their mind and said that they just didn’t have room for him on the tour. Next was the lesbian high schooler who when she wanted to bring her girlfriend to the prom and dress in a tuxedo the school district decided to just cancel the entire prom so as to not allow same sex dates at the prom. And the final thing for me was when a pre-schooler was thrown out of a Catholic school because the kid’s parents happen to be of the same sex. Put all of the above together and the outrage begins to boil in me until I feel as though I’m going to hemorrhage gayness all over the sidewalk. ARGHHHHHHHH! I feel like Snoopy on top of his doghouse shaking his fist at the Red Baron. Curse you homophobic assholes, curse you and the world that you’re trying to create where everyone and everything is exactly like you. Curse you! See what I mean? Do you have any idea how exhausting it is to be gay? – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Some Thoughts On High School Gays – Don’t Get Me Started!

Last weekend we went to see a production of West Side Story at the local performing arts high school. The evening got off to a rocky start as the power had gone off for several city blocks but after a forty minute wait, the lights came on, the curtain went up, the leads fell in love (and died) and there was some singing and dancing too. But as I looked around on the stage and in the audience I couldn’t help but reflect on my days in high school theatre (which I am willing to admit happened in the early eighties) and wonder how different life has become for gays in high school. So here are some thoughts on high school gays – Don’t Get Me Started!

As much as the gay community would have you believe that there is no way to tell if someone is gay or not, while that may be true in some cases I’m pleased to report (as I have always fallen into this category) there are still some effeminate gays that you can tell from a mile away. I always find it funny that a group such as “the gays” who claim to want acceptance for all find it so easy to discriminate amongst themselves. “Straight Acting” seems to be the holy grail of many in the gay culture but that is a blog for another day.

As we took our seats in the theatre I noticed a very thin boy coming into our row of seats. He didn’t sit next to us but a few seats down. He was effeminate to say the least with his skinny jeans making him look even more emaciated, a thin t-shirt on and a tiny backpack on that looked more like the ones that women used as purses a few seasons back. The small backpack/purse had the brand “Simple” written on it and I thought that there was no more “simple” way to see that this boy, who was wearing both straps from the backpack on his shoulders was a high school gay. Now before you tell me I could be wrong, I’ll admit that I could be wrong but the scars of beatings from bullies and name calling were telling my “Spidey sense” something different. Before the show began the empty seats between us and the “Simple” boy were filled with a woman, what I assumed was her husband and a small girl who had a perfect blend of both of the adults’ characteristics to let me know that this was their child. When we came back from intermission, the group of people next to us changed their lineup and the “Simple” boy ended up in a seat next to me. Apparently this was the couple’s son.

As the music began for the second act I found myself distracted by the boy sitting next to me mostly because as the music played I could see out of my peripheral vision that he had brought his thin hands up to his face. I looked to see a kid so entranced by what he was hearing and watching that he was almost more entertaining than the show itself. From his seat in the second row, he was living and breathing every word and movement being done on the stage. During the powerful scene between Anita and Maria after Maria’s bother (Anita’s lover) has been killed I thought this boy was going to die himself. His hands were covering his mouth like someone would do in a horror film trying to cover their mouth so as to not scream out which is all that they wanted to do. He was there, in the moment of the show and was no longer the skinny kid with the skinny backpack. He WAS Maria, trying to explain to Anita that he had to be with his love, Tony. He WAS Anita warning Maria of a boy who killed her brother. He was also all of the Jets and Sharks as they came on and performed their parts.

If you think I’m reading too much into what I think the boy sitting next to me was feeling I can assure you that I’m not. I was that kid. I am that kid when I watch theatre or movies. I fall into the action of the performance as if I’m giving it myself. There’s a reason so many gays go into theatre, there in the dark of the theatre or on the light of the stage with your makeup firmly in place creating a version of yourself as a character you can soar and experience things that in the mundane light of day might be frowned upon or misunderstood. From your seat or as the performer you can live vicariously through the characters and forget that you were bullied that day or that tomorrow you’ll be bullied again. There’s only this moment where you must send Anita to Doc’s to warn Tony that Chino has a gun and is after him. And it’s thrilling.

So as the lights came up after the performance and the “Simple” boy walked out with his parents I realized as he walked away that there may be a lot of things that change for gay kids in high school but finding acceptance, escape and yourself is still a course available from any school’s theatre department either in a seat in the auditorium or on its stage. “When you’re a gay, you’re a gay all the way from your first high school play to your last dying day…” Some thoughts on high school gays – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Stars On Ice Tells Johnny Weir No Room On The Ice – Don’t Get Me Started!

Although it may seem to many that I’m currently obsessed with Johnny Weir, I can assure you that such is not the case however, I would be lying if I were to say that I wasn’t mesmerized by the recent blatant discrimination shown Mr. Weir first at the Olympics and now by the Stars On Ice producers. Seems as though Johnny Weir while a national, international and Olympic ranked skater is good enough to make it in the aforementioned competitions he is not going to make it onto the Stars On Ice tour any time soon. In what was first announced as the sponsors of Stars On Ice (Smuckers but now I choose to call them Schmuckers) stated that Johnny Weir was not “family friendly” after several gay and lesbian legal organizations began questioning this statement suddenly it turned out that much like the innkeeper told Mary and Joseph, there was no room at the inn or in this case, Stars On Ice tells Johnny Weir no room on the ice – Don’t Get Me Started!

For far too long the age old traditional sports community has maintained a sort of archaic code of ethics that really only expected players to be discreet about everything from their drug use to their raping of women in hotel rooms all in the name of preserving the name of the game for which the player played. They didn’t really care that the players did these things but they didn’t want anyone else to know that they did because it could hurt everything from ticket sales to endorsement deals. But as more and more ego deluded players become shall we say, “sloppy” about covering their tracks and/or waitresses wanting their twenty minutes of fame (they actually showed one of Tiger Woods’ supposed conquests at the Oscars on one of the entertainment shows – if that won’t drive a girl to take a long drive from Woods’ club I don’t know what will) athletes are becoming just like every other icon we hold up to the light and discover that there’s either nothing of value underneath or that there are so many cockroaches that crawl out of their closets that the best exterminator on the planet can’t save them from themselves. So in this world where sports figures are now being prosecuted for bringing guns into locker rooms tell me how in 2010 some sponsor can be worried about having “a gay” on the Stars On Ice tour?

Let’s talk about the obvious first, I’m sure that Johnny Weir wouldn’t be the first (or the last) gay on the Stars On Ice tour, while there is much speculation that there are more straight men on the ice than gay ones a quick look at the recent Olympics will make you cock your head like the RCA Victor dog, Nipper, with a “What you talking about Willis?” in your eyes. Trust me when I say that there may be more straight men than ever in skating but there are still a lot of gay ones too. The second thing is that Johnny Weir to the best of my knowledge had never done anything on the ice that was not “family friendly” I don’t think he’s ever done any Porn On Ice production but I could be wrong (and as I’m writing this I’m thinking about the thousands of people who would probably think that porn on ice would be hot though I would have to caution this a little as you know, men tend to have a shrinkage issue in cold environments and I’m not so sure you want to be naked while someone has a sharp skate pointed at your head or other body appendages). If you’re questioning his character because PETA has repeatedly asked him not to love fur as much as he does, then you may have something there but as far as not being family friendly, I hardly think there’s an argument there worth making up. And finally, I go back to a quote of Mel Brooks from the movie “To Be Or Not To Be” where he plays a theatre owner in Poland before they’re about to be occupied by the Nazis, “Without Gypsies, Jews and Faggots there would be no theatre!” The same can be said for ice skating and honestly almost any other profession. Someone has to bedazzle those costumes with the accuracy of small children in Honduras and it’s usually a gay with a thimble and a needle.

The best thing about this whole incident with Johnny Weir is that more and more cockroaches are being put on the run. I’m delighted that Schmuckers has had to defend itself, I’m thrilled that Stars On Ice is having to make sense of the fact that they are cutting off their own gayness to spite their face (or ticket sales which are supposedly frozen cold). What we have to keep doing is like any other injustice, keep uncovering it and talking about it to show the sane world how ridiculous people are so as to eventually create a world where these types of things simply can’t be done because they know everyone will uncover their “gentlemen’s agreements” to discriminate against anyone and broadcast it to the world. I read a report that said Johnny Weir is going to put together his own touring ice show and that’s a show I’d go see because he is at the end of the day a great showman. I don’t care or care to know who he is sleeping with, I just expect like any other performer that when I go to see him he’ll be able to keep the ball on his nose, honk the horns in order and not kill a trainer. Oh wait, that’s animal performers – same thing! Stars On Ice tells Johnny Weir no room on the ice – Don’t Get Me Started!

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I’m Getting Rid Of The Self Help Books – Don’t Get Me Started!

I can’t take it anymore. I simply can’t take how much stuff I have in my life. Wasn’t it the great George Carlin who did the big monologue about “stuff?” So recently as I looked around my life I started thinking about what I need and what I don’t need. I’m getting rid of the self help books – Don’t Get Me Started!

I don’t know that I’ve ever made it through one of the self help books I own. That’s not true, I made it through “Feel The Fear and Do It Anyway” but that’s about the extent of it. I never got through the whole feelings buried inside that cause me cancer book. I never got through the identity book that was supposed to help me find out who I was or any of the other ones. I’m hoping that someone somewhere at the Goodwill where these books are ending up will get some value from all of these books that I’m finally discarding. I did think about taking them to several different Goodwill drop off locations, lest the people who accept (and give me my tax deductible receipt) think that I’m a basket case or suicidal giving away things to clean up my life before I end it but then I’d have to buy another book that teaches me how to become rational and I passed that ages ago.

The strange thing is that I don’t know how all these books came to be in my collection. But there they are and I must admit that I seem to have way many more self help books than anyone should possess. More to the point, if someone saw this collection they would think that I’m a complete nutbag (I think that’s the technical term for it). The disheartening part is that several of them came from friends. What does that say about me? What does that say about the way my friends see me? And while I’m delighted that I’ve assisted these authors in making some money from me purchasing their books, the cycle ends now.

Look, I’m forty-five years old and while I’d like to think that I’m limber enough that if someone wanted to teach this old dog a new trick I’d have the capacity to learn it the fact of the matter is that when it comes to emotional health and my way of dealing with life, I’ve all ready reached as close to my maturity level as is going to happen. I’ve admitted that I’m a control freak, that I’m too much of a people pleaser and a host of other maladies and like the alcoholic who doesn’t really want help, I’ve decided that admitting it is not the just first step to a solution to the problem but actually IS the solution to the problem!

The truth of the matter is that the last book I read all the way through was a Harry Potter book. Look we can’t all be reading “Philosophers of the eighteenth century” or how Eli Whitney came up with the cotton gin. I embrace the fact that I’m someone who has no idea why anyone would buy a Kindle. It’s sad but there you have it, I’m not a reader. I’m more of a skimmer or reader of short stories by David Sedaris kind of reader. I embrace my shortcomings and encourage anyone in my life to do so as well. There is no handbook for my life and these books certainly aren’t going to become one anytime soon.

For those who gain great solace or insight from these types of books I have only three words for you, “Good for you” but when it comes to me these books never gave me anything other than something else to dust. Lest you think I’m only picking on self help books, I’m going to also help myself by getting rid of that mug someone got me with the definition of my name on it, the ironing board cover that has a picture of a naked man on it and a host of other things. Wow, I feel lighter all ready, maybe those books (indirectly of course) have helped! I’m getting rid of the self help books – Don’t Get Me Started!

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How Much Sympathy Should We Give Gays Like Senator Roy Ashburn? – Don’t Get Me Started!

The recent outcome of California Republican Senator Roy Ashburn coming out is that it started me thinking. Here is a guy who has voted against most legislation for gay rights and gets caught drunk driving after leaving a gay bar with his Mr. Right Now in the passenger seat. While some may say that we gays need to stone him (with Swarovski crystals of course) for voting against his “own people” as it were I found myself just well…bored with the whole incident. How much sympathy should we give gays who only come out after they’re caught? – Don’t Get Me Started!

As far as Senator Ashburn’s gayness I don’t really care, it won’t affect my life, that’s something for him and his family to deal with and in my opinion, none of my business. The fact that he like so many other closeted politicians voted against laws that would allow gay Americans to be treated and seen equally under the eyes of the law is not a surprise either. I’ve heard the therapists say that it’s the self-loathing by these gays or the fact that they want to have their cock and eat one too without anyone knowing that they tend to vote anti-gay (for lack of a better term). This will affect me due to the fact that he is voting against my rights and has the authority as an elected official to do so and while he says he was voting against the gays in order to better represent his constituents’ viewpoint I think that’s a poor excuse, a marketing diversion and a way to make him feel noble when he’s really not.  

It started long before him but when Governor McGreevey (or McCreepy as I refer to him) had his big scandal and came out he stated that the reason he felt he could live a double life and never get caught was that he just felt a sense of entitlement and power in his position that he could go on fooling everyone around him. He felt there would be no real consequences because of the fact that he felt first that he was too smart to get caught and second that he was too important to have anyone cross him and tell the world that he was gay. Arrogance is not confined to gay politicians and if you ask me something that would stop a lot of the corruption in our government would be if there were term limits on all political offices. These career politicians get way too much power and lose touch with the people they’re supposed to represent. But that’s a blog for another day.

As I watched the way that Asburn is handling this “scandal” I started to think about the people who would say that we should have sympathy for this man. Any homosexual will tell you that admitting to yourself let alone to anyone else that you’re gay when the whole world around you is telling you that it isn’t the “norm” or “acceptable” in society or laws is not an easy process. For some of us it’s easier because we’ve always known and weren’t good enough actors to conceal it but for many this is not the case. So where do we decide who gets our sympathy and who doesn’t? There are plenty of gays who sit back in judgment of other gays and their coming out process but I’m not one of them. There are also many gays who will do everything in their power to out celebrities and anyone else for their own fame and fortune (are you listening Perez Hilton) but I am not one of them. And the more I think about Senator Ashburn the more I think that sympathy is the last thing we need to give anyone coming out, empathy maybe but sympathy? No. You see being true to yourself to me is one of the most important things you can do for yourself and the world around you. If you choose to be in the public eye then guess what, somewhere at some point your sexuality and the beverage you drink at Starbucks is going to be exposed (how else can they keep the 24 hour news cycle going).

Many would say that coming out is a brave thing to do. And the more public figures that come out, out themselves by driving drunk from a gay bar or have a Perez Hilton out them the more desensitized we all become to the process. While McGreevey (and his wife) got a book deal and got to sit on Oprah’s couch I doubt that Senator Ashburn will get that call. The times they have changed and hopefully the times will change even more to the point that coming out will be less and less of a big deal and more a choice for the individual to make, knowing that they will not be ridiculed or legislated against for coming out. I know, I’m a dreamer but I’d like to see us get to this point in my lifetime. Look I don’t expect my straight friends to let me know that they’re straight and I think it’s really odd that the religious right seem to have made us gays think that we need to let everyone know what’s going on in our bedrooms. I’m not advocating staying in the closet but let’s be honest world, we gays don’t hold a monopoly on the fetish industry as some would have you believe. So why don’t we all stop worrying about gay or straight and start worrying about things that really matter like how Kate Gosselin can be considered a celebrity for the new season of Dancing With The Stars! How much sympathy should we give gays who only come out after they’re caught? – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Facebook Philosophers – Don’t Get Me Started!

They say that everyone has a book in them. I just wonder if anyone actually writes that book and more importantly if anyone wants to read it. I include myself in this club for while I think I’m the most fascinating (and insightful person I know) apparently this cheese stands alone in this thought as I have no literary agent or book deal…yet. But this is not about the people who talk of writing the great American novel this is about all of the people on my Facebook “friend” list who seem to believe that they are philosophers in their own right. There are many people who seem to think they are the Plato of our age (and no, I’m not talking about Mickey’s dog, the planet that is no more <don’t write to me, yes I’m kidding, I know that is Pluto> or all the supposed straight Republicans who think they’re great orators and are sleeping with men but claiming they’re straight, the only thing they do that is comparable to them and the Greek philosophers). In a world where we put the emphasis and importance on he who dies with the most money, toys, etc. I find it interesting that the soullessness of computer programs that allow us to think we’re connecting or socially interacting with one another breeds such deep thought. Or does it? Facebook Philosophers – Don’t Get Me Started!

Look I understand that as I get older I think I know a lot. What’s more is that I think everyone should know what I know, know that I know it, agree with me and be glad that I told them what I know. This is called getting older and supposedly wiser (or perhaps just annoying) but what gets me are all the people whom I’ve seen puke up seventeen beers, cheated on tests during our school days and slept with more people than go through the turnstiles of the New York subway system on a daily basis who somewhere along the way they have become a spiritual leader in their own mind. Where did this come from? Did aliens pick them up and make them wise? I have a little trouble believing that one.

While some choose to post things from actual philosophers (and sometimes give them credit) many decide to make up their own brand of philosophy and try to peddle it to the Facebook users no doubt hoping that Hallmark will get in touch with them to write some cards for them. “When I look into my child’s eyes I know that God is looking back at me” (and versions similar to this quote) seems to be one that is used a lot by the Facebook philosophers. What they fail to realize is that in most cases their kids are just cross eyed and goofy looking but they’ve convinced themselves that not only is their child gorgeous but some divine being is communicating through that lazy left eye. They would be wrong.

Believe it or not I think I’d prefer to read what people are cooking, that they need a cow in Farmville or that they overslept instead of reading these mock philosophies. “Love is sand, the more you grip it the more slips through your grasp. Hold love gently” Ugh…puke…sputter…gag. Suddenly I want to start posting song lyrics or something. “If I was a sculpture but then again no” I would do this but my fear is that everyone would start posting lyrics from the Carpenters and thinking that they’re actually helping someone by letting us know that rainy days and Mondays always get them down.

I get that we’re all looking for the big answers about what life is all about but I’d like to think that should some divine inspiration come over someone (and I have my doubts about it happening to anyone I know, sorry kids) I’d hope I wouldn’t find out about it on Facebook. I’d much rather someone email it to me letting me know that if I don’t forward it to twenty people in twenty minutes all my hair is going to fall out! Facebook Philosophers – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Maybe It’s Gay Divorce We Have To Convince Them Of – Don’t Get Me Started!

I have a dear friend who was married during the small window of time when it was legal in California. Recently he and his husband (while I find this term weird sort of, it actually applies as they are registered husbands with the state of California) they have been going through some difficult times and there has been some mention of possibly divorcing. When I brought this up to a straight co-worker he scoffed, “Why do guys have to fuck up a good thing and get married? <heh, heh, heh>” As I discussed the legal ramifications of a possible divorce for a gay couple the scoffing from my co-worker continued. He pontificated about the fact that he didn’t think any court would look at an equal division of assets even though this is the California law and as he spewed his opinions (and I spewed mine right back) it dawned on me. Maybe it’s gay divorce we have to convince them of – Don’t Get Me Started!

When gay marriage was becoming legal in California I read a lot about it. Not because I live in California, I don’t, but because I thought it my duty to find out what the California gays were getting that I wasn’t in Nevada. On one of the websites I was shocked to read that those couples who were not residents of California but were married there should they ever want to divorce, one of the spouses would have to have residence in California for six months to get the divorce. It was one of those, “Hey, before you go get married in California gays, here’s what you should know” articles. When I cited this, my co-worker again dismissed me or the thought that this could be true or even why any gay couple would get divorced. Stating that since it’s not legal in many states, if they lived in a state where they couldn’t be married to a new partner, why would they worry about getting divorced?

You see, I think more than anything it’s the antiquated thinking that men are hunters so if they drag back a Fabio to their cave they don’t like or get tired of them then they should throw one another out and just go on their way. Because they’re both “hunters” they can find their own new cave, way, provide for themselves and no one should put a house in two men’s (or women’s) names to begin with. I can’t even begin to tell you how my blood began to boil. As this co-worker insisted that should my friend’s marriage end in divorce he would be “interested” to see what a judge had to say and that things like common law marriage and asset division, claiming he didn’t think it would apply because they were two men, it wasn’t still legal in California to be married and that there are no federal provisions for same sex marriage.

If I didn’t have so many straight people I loved it would be easy to hate all of them when I hear this type of stupidity spewing from a supposedly educated person. The fact that anyone out there could or should think that my relationship of twenty-one years with the same man is any less (are you listening Mr. Obama and lawmakers) than this douche who has his wife at home and 1.5 children who play soccer is ludicrous. And when you see it shoved in your face this way you begin to understand that the ignorance of man and the fact that so many men (and women) hold onto their ignorance with the tightest grip imaginable (and we all know that the tighter you grip sand or anything else the more slips through your fingers) and not only do they hold these ideals tightly they hold them up as some sort of strange paragon of what life should be for everyone citing it as “normal” to make themselves feel better.

Look I don’t want anyone to have to go through divorce whether they be straight or gay. But when you get done telling me all the reasons why I  can’t be married and then a law says that I can (in certain states) please don’t try to turn around and then tell me that me getting divorce is also less than your straight marriage or your straight divorce. Look, it’s 2010 and it’s time American morons begin to realize that gays are not just something to imitate to the guffaws of your straight friends, nor are their relationships any less than straight relationships. Guess what straightees? We’re just as good and bad at relationships as you, you stupid fucks, we just have more style in the way that we do it! Maybe it’s gay divorce we have to convince them of – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Step Into My Office, I Mean Starbucks, No, I Mean My Office – Don’t Get Me Started!

I previously wrote about observing a life coach doing her magic coaching a victim, I mean client in a Starbucks (http://hubpages.com/hub/The_Starbucks_Life_Coach) but recently I’ve found that if I go into my Starbucks instead of it being some cool coffee house vibe it’s become like a world of semi-cubicle businesses sort of like a farmer’s market or something under one roof. There they all sit with their laptops up, WiFi connection in place life coaching one another, working on the legal papers to help a friend not have their house be foreclosed upon or having their taxes done. As I looked around at what is no doubt the future of American businesses who can’t afford the overhead of an office I couldn’t help but wonder if it makes you leery when your accountant tells you to choose a Starbucks to meet him at to discuss your finances or if it’s sort of like when you found the toy in the cereal before your sibling did because you get to have your coffee and meeting too? Step into my office, I mean Starbucks, no, I mean my office – Don’t Get Me Started!

I’m actually surprised that someone in the Starbucks corporate world hasn’t figured out a way to rent tables at their locations just for the purpose of business people who all ready use Starbucks as their office. You could rent it by the hour, throw in some WiFi and/or a cup of coffee and there you have it, another source of revenue for the company. At the end of the hour your WiFi would cut off and the music of Sade’s newest CD would get so loud from the built-in speakers in the table that you would no longer be able to converse with the person you’re doing business with until you paid for another hour. (Like they need my advice, right?) Lest you think that I’m scoffing at the idea of doing business in a Starbucks, my first interview for my current position (well, my only interview – yes, I’m that good) took place in a Starbucks. Obviously it went well.

I guess what gets me is that with all that Starbucks does to maintain their, “Look at us, we’re a cool coffee house no matter how much you feel like it’s a fast food joint” with their CD sales and good music playing, friendly staff and drinks with names that even I wonder where they came up with them, we all get that they are the leaders when it comes to the places they’ve created. But there’s a large part of me that really wants to walk in and find a group of guys huddled over a table in their berets with their sunglasses and goatee soul patches in place, their anemic pallor only slightly visible through the haze of the imported cigarette smoke they’re creating by holding their cigarettes between their index finger and thumb with their palms up to the air as they purse their lips to take a drag and then exhale slowly blowing their smoke into a haze like the one in their minds. Cool, man. Unfortunately most of the time when I go into Starbucks I only find harried mothers shoving pastries and yes, believe it or not, coffee drinks down their kids’ gullets as they race to take them to school. Or a gaggle of soccer moms having just dropped off their kids at soccer and are now getting some mommy, mommy and mommy time to drink coffee and talk about the mommy that isn’t in attendance (it never pays to be absence from a gathering of people who all know you).

I guess I would have a business meeting or interaction with someone in a Starbucks but it all depends on what business the guy is doing, right? I don’t think my proctologist should be doing business at Starbucks and the good news there is that I don’t think Starbucks thinks so either. Step into my office, I mean Starbucks, no, I mean my office – Don’t Get Me Started!

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An Apology To My Friend Deborah Lippmann, I Have Become My Parents – Don’t Get Me Started!

I’m sure if I had joined the therapy bandwagon years ago when all my pals were doing it that maybe I would not have answered the call of destiny so completely but answer it I have. I used to think that I had taken the best of both of my parents, mixed a little bit of my own fabulous in and created a unique human being. I was wrong. A recent couple of trips to stores like Neiman Marcus and Barneys to buy some nail polish (as gifts) from a pal’s collection, Deborah Lippmann and the assimilation was complete. An apology to my friend Deborah Lippmann, I have become my parents – Don’t Get Me Started!

Lest you think that I do not like my parents, I can assure you that I adore them. We make one another laugh like no other people on the planet. I talk to my mother almost every day and we have dinner together every Sunday. (What kind of a nice Jewish boy would I be if I didn’t make my spouse have dinner with my parents every week?) But what has always bothered me about my parents is a list that is too long to go into here so I’ll focus on the one annoyance that I now possess. It began years ago actually. My father is the worst but my mother is just as bad. You see, my father grew up in a small town. So small that when my parents moved back there to take care of his parents when their health was failing, my mother received a call one morning from my grandmother at around 9am asking why she had been at the market at 8am? You see, so and so had seen her there and called my grandmother and well, you get how it goes, it was a small town and everyone but everyone was in everyone’s business. My parents did not live there long. The thing is that my father carries his special brand of small townness with him wherever he goes. We’re creatures of habit and when my parents would frequent the same restaurant for certain meals of the day and then I would come to town before I sat down the server and everyone else at the restaurant all ready knew everything about me. “Oh, you’re the actor son, right? Where are you acting? Your parents told me about that part you almost got.” As I would cringe and sink into the leather booth I realized that my parents had shared a little too much.

Well it’s happened and I’m sharing way too much. At this point I guess it’s best to tell you that I have known Deborah Lippmann for most of my life. Our families were and are close friends. I adore her and when she became the “Manicurist to the Stars” I was not surprised. Nor was I surprised by her fabulous selling CDs for I have also heard Deborah sing for most of my life and know she’s an amazing talent. So when I was invited by a co-worker to his sixteen year old daughter’s fashion show for charity well, I’m a Jew I can’t go empty handed so I immediately thought about the semi-new color from my pal Deborah’s nail line, “Happy Birthday” a glittery bottle of fun that every woman should own. Sure I could have gone to the website to purchased it (and you should do so right now http://lippmanncollection.com/07/LC007_index.html) but I thought it was better if I bought it in a retail location so that the retailer would know how hot Deborah’s products really are. First I called Nordstrom and they were sold out of the Happy Birthday so I called Neiman’s and they had one in stock. I had them hold it for me. When I arrived at Neiman’s I asked for the salesperson I’d spoken to on the phone and she immediately knew who I was and what I was there for as only Neiman’s sales associates can do, they give great guest service. I asked if I could see the Lippmann Collection display. After all I figured, I should look and see that Deborah’s stuff was merchandised correctly as I’m an old retail gay from way back. The display was fine and mostly full with the exception of Happy Birthday which while there was one for display, the one bottle left was under the counter for me. And as the salesperson walked me back to the counter I heard this voice coming from me that I couldn’t quite believe, “I’m a friend of Deborah Lippmann so I like to check out the display when I buy her products to let her know how it looks in the store.” ARGHHHHHHHH! While some may think I was trying to impress the salesperson I can assure you that it was just my parents’ “too much information telling” entering my body.

Flash forward a week later and I’m about to go visit a friend on tour with Fiddler on the Roof with Theodore Bikel. The friend in question who is a stage manager on the show used to be a manicurist so I once again knew Happy Birthday was the way to go. In the meantime another co-worker had told me his daughter’s birthday was coming up so another bottle needed to be purchased. I called Nordstrom, still out. Neiman’s? I had exhausted their current stock. And so I called Barneys. George (who somehow managed to get the “S” sound in his name upon answering the phone at his cosmetics counter) knew exactly what I was looking for and asked me how many bottles of Happy Birthday I needed. “Two please George, thankssss.” I answered for I have been cursed with the sibilant “s” too. When I arrived at Barneys there he was, tanned within an inch of his life, dyed black hair spiked to perfection and a pursing of the lips that only us gays can do. He took the bottles from under the counter and said, “You’ve shopped with us before, yes?” I told him I had and as he searched for me in the system, raising and eyebrow that I was a local there was a pause in the conversation. And although I had practiced in the car NOT to say anything about knowing Deborah, Satan’s voice came from the depths of my body once more, the whole story spilled out about me knowing Deborah most of my life. I was embarrassed, George seemed nonplused and as I walked out with the silliest, smallest shopping I was emotionally cutting myself.

The Evil That Emails Can Do – Don’t Get Me Started!

 I’m as guilty as anyone else when it comes to hitting “send” just a little too soon. Over the years I’ve learned through trial and error that although I may think I’m charming and witty in an email, it really has nothing to do with what my original intent is and everything to do with the mindset that the person reading the email is in. You see, while like Madonna said in Vogue, “Rita Hayworth gave good face” I figure I write my blog five days a week and I “give good write” and even though someone may know me very well it has happened more than once that I have offended or made a not great situation worse. The evil emails can do – Don’t Get Me Started!

I get it, it’s easier to send an email to tell someone something that you don’t really want to tell them face to face or even on the phone but the problem is what I previously stated which is that more times than not, it will bite you in the ass. I don’t care if you think you’re a new modern day Keats or Shelley, when it comes to communicating, emails are best left for quick notes and forwarding pictures of adorable kittens doing things that make us all go, “Awww.” (You’ll notice I did NOT include “to send jokes of the day” or to send chain emails that let me know that all of my hair is going to fall out if I don’t forward the email to thirty people in the next thirty minutes)

I’ll never forget when I was working for my previous company and a co-worker was livid about something. She thought she would show the person who wrote the original email that pissed her off. Here is how her email started, “I’ve waited four hours until I could clam down enough to send this email.” Now anyone who read this knew immediately that she had not “calmed” down at all because she was typing while intoxicated with so much anger that she wrote “clamed” when she meant “calmed.” The only thing that made it worse than the fact that she sent this email when she was not of clear head (and let me say it went on forever and as we all know, no one really reads a long email, they skim it at best) she had not only hit “reply” but she had hit “reply all.” The only thing worse than sending an email to do the work you should be doing in person or by phone is hitting “reply all.”

I receive and send a lot of emails every day so I know that it can be easier to just send a quick email to someone but I beg of you to understand what emails are really for and how they’re best used. They’re great for sending someone information about an event or where you’re all going to meet that night to go out. They’re good for communicating with places like the DMV that you don’t really want to do in person waiting for an eternity and need a way of proving you sent them an email. They are not good for leaving your spouse (yes, I had a friend whose husband sent her a text to check her email where upon opening her email she discovered that he was asking her for a divorce) and they’re not the best for communicating with relatives you don’t see often enough so that they can understand what you mean behind the words on the screen. As I said in the beginning, it doesn’t depend upon your head space when you write the email, it’s the reader’s head space when they read the email. So for the sake of the people around you and for yourself to have some balls, please, pick up a phone and don’t send an email if it’s important. The evil emails can do – Don’t Get Me Started!

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I’ve Said It Before And Now I’m Saying It Again, Travel Has Lost All Its Glamour! – Don’t Get Me Started!

I’ll admit, it wasn’t Paris for the weekend or anything as romantic as that, it was Tucson, Arizona to see a friend who is touring with a production of Fiddler On The Roof starring Theodore Bikel. The man is 86, how many opportunities do any of us have to see the Broadway original in the show? While I had done the same thing with Carol Channing in her last tour of Hello Dolly to mostly embarrassing and making faces akin to, “God love her, she’s at least standing and talking at the same time.” I’m delighted to report that Mr. Bikel was a delight. So a quick Southwest hour flight from Vegas to Tucson I took and now that I’m in the airport waiting to go back home, I realize once more that I’ve said it before and now I’m saying it again, travel has lost all its glamour! – Don’t Get Me Started!

I’m only forty-five but I remember traveling in a suit and tie when I was young. It was an event. You dressed up, gave great thought to what you would take on the plane and you always asked for a deck of playing cards. My brother and I could play the card game, War for hours on end and did. But that was forty years ago, when they used to have a show. Now it’s a disco but not for Lola, wait that’s Copacabana. You get the idea.

So as I returned the rental car and got to the kiosk to print my boarding pass I was feeling okay about things. I had changed to an earlier flight so I all ready knew that I was in the lousy “B” world of Southwest and although I only have carryon luggage I’m prepared for the dreaded, “I’m sorry sir, we’re going to have to check that bag.” Pre-stripped I readied myself for entry into the security area. The watch and bracelet had all ready come off and been put away with the cell phone. The quart sized clear plastic bag containing the liquids permissible to board the plane (and that let everyone know I was gay by the fact that I was cramming face wash, moisturizer and three hair products into the small ziplock bag while there was no Mennen Speed stick in site) was all ready in a plastic bin and I was getting my laptop out to go into a plastic bin when I saw the bin seemingly move by itself in a shoved manner skidding past me. The man behind me I guess had decided that I was taking too long and decided to help me out. Help me out like when you’re a kid and don’t know it’s stupid to remove a chair from someone about to sit down. As I quickly moved forward to get up to my plastic bin and put the laptop in it I didn’t even look back at the asshole who had shoved it. He didn’t deserve one of my perfected icy stares of disgust. He wasn’t important enough for it.

So I get to the overcrowded gate and move right to the area where no one is sitting. I wanted to be able to look over at the humanity but not have to be a part of it. Soon he came. This oversized blustery man in a cheap charcoal gray suit. “What about this seat?” he indicated the seat next to the one that was housing my briefcase. I looked up, “It’s open.” As he plopped his oversized frame into the seat and seemed to be muttering to himself I was immediately sure that I had made a large mistake telling him the seat was open. First the cheap suit jacket came off. Next his carryon bags were place in a manner so that he could rest his oversized calves and feet on them. With a “galumph” his feet landed on the bags forcing the air out of them in a way that I thought he had killed his bags removing the last breath they would ever take. That’s when I saw them. Crocs. That’s right, while some might give him credit for the fact that they were black and definitely went with the cheap suit in their cheap rubberness, they were still crocs with a suit. And then he topped off the entire ensemble by pulling out of the inner coat pocket a mask with elastic that he stretched to fit his melon shaped head as if he was in some sort of spa for people who go to spas in an airport gate wearing cheap suits. As he began to snore two seats away from me I looked around the gate to see if anyone was seeing what I was seeing, to see if anyone was as disgusted as I was. No one even noticed. Then again, what could I expect? They were wearing crocs themselves, or flip flops, torn jeans and their iPod ear bud cords hanging down their chests.

This is it I thought, really it, forget travel being glamorous, it was no longer even attractive or civilized. So as I sit and type this and the snoring is becoming louder from cheap suit with crocs (his travel name, not his Indian name), I wonder if anyone sees me and gets that I’m not a “B54” as my boarding pass would suggest, I’m a seat 3D from back when 3D meant first class. I’ve said it before and now I’m saying it again, travel has lost all its glamour! – Don’t Get Me Started!

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