When You’re A Gay American, Little Injustices Can Sting A Lot! – Don’t Get Me Started!

A recent visit to the doctor’s office turned out to be yet another eye opening experience to me that when you’re a gay American, little injustices can sting a lot! – Don’t Get Me Started!

I had not been to the doctor in months as I’m a generally healthy person (stop the comments about my mental health, I’m talking physically for the moment) but I decided to go in and just get things checked out. The first thing they do is throw that form at you. You know the one I’m talking about, the one that is going to ask you to list the same information about five times on the same form; your name, date of birth, age (because I suppose they can’t do the math to figure out your age from your birth date) and of course all of your insurance information. After all, the insurance information is the most important part, without that they can’t keep the diseased hamster that is American healthcare on the wheel running if they don’t have the info to triple bill the insurance company so that the insurance will pay what the procedure really costs and then bill part of it back to you as “not covered” or part of your deductible so that they can get a piece of the action too. Run, healthcare hamster, run! However this entry is not about the insurance companies and how their pre-existing condition of overcharging and denying coverage may or may not be solved by the recent health care legislation.

In filling out the form I found it interesting that they allow you to sort of “opt” out when it comes to questions about your race but when it comes to whether or not you’re single or married they want that information. What makes it even more interesting for someone of my shall we say “persuasion” is that they ask you your marital status on one question and then the next question asks if you live alone, with your spouse or with roommates. While most would say that I’m blowing things out of proportion I want to be very clear that I had no problem answering the first question as “single” due to the fact that in the eyes of the law I cannot be married in my state nor is same sex marriage legal according to the current Federal laws. I am however the legal Domestic Partner of my partner in the state of Nevada and therefore on the second question, I answered that I lived with my “spouse” because according to the documents I signed and the $75 we sent in to be registered with the state, my partner is now my “spouse” according to the law. The thing is that I hesitated before I checked the “spouse” box. Why?

Why did I hesitate? Because until my government’s laws state that I have complete equal rights, I will always have this hesitation when filling out a form like this one. I have lived for forty-five years and at the end of August I will have been with the same and only man for the past twenty-two years and yet I still have to check the “single” box on all forms. I have had to go along with the untruth that American society has forced me to propagate on everything from my tax forms to my Facebook page. I’m “single” to the Federal government and on Facebook I’m “In A Relationship” but in my heart I’m as married as my parents and their parents before them. I’m not asking the church going folk who insist that two men can’t be married in the eyes of their supposed God to understand or condone my relationship. In fact, I don’t want or need them to understand it or condone it. I do however need my government to understand and condone it because just like the government doesn’t oversee first communion, they should not concern themselves with marriage, only civil unions for the sake of the civilization and tax purposes along with the other thousand or so rights and privileges that heterosexuals currently receive  with their marriage certificate.

To those of you who will tell me that I should be thankful I don’t live in a country where they jail or kill me for my “lifestyle” I can only wish you one day of feeling what I feel as a law abiding, taxpaying American who when filling out forms, not being able to serve my country or even afraid for my own safety due to the fact I am a man that has a man in my bed is told and shown by his government every day that he is a second class citizen. If you did live one day in my shoes I don’t think it would be long until you found yourself feeling as I do, like the Mayor of Who-ville from the classic Dr. Seuss book, shouting as loud as you can, “We are here! We are here!” When you’re a gay American, little injustices can sting a lot! – Don’t Get Me Started!

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The Lost Art Of Listening – Don’t Get Me Started!

Before you finish your sentence, in my mind I’ve all ready finished it for you and I’ve moved on to either the conclusion of that conversation or perhaps even a new topic of conversation all together. I admit it, I’m a “nodder” when you’re talking to me. I’m smiling and I’m nodding and then more times than I care to remember when I walk away I have no idea what you just said to me. I could have been thinking about how many calories are in a salad that is supposed to be healthy for you but if you want any dressing on it you’re asking for trouble and may as well have had that burger that you were trying to stay away from because you were trying to eat “healthy” all the while I just agreed with you to wash your dog and take your kids to an amusement park all of which I have no intention of doing and will have no recollection of when you “surprise” me with the news that I agreed to do either of these things the day before they’re supposed to happen. The lost art of listening – Don’t Get Me Started!

I’m not sure when listening became so difficult for me. I was a fairly decent student and as I’m a habitual rule follower I’m sure I used to listen a lot but as time moves on and I get older, I find myself bored with whatever anyone has to say within the first seconds. I know, it’s bad, why do you think I’m writing about it?  I guess I just want people to do what I always tell my mother. When my mother tells a story you have to hear every inch of it and every second of “Well then he said” “and then I said” “but your father was sitting there and he said” it all gets too much for me until finally I move my hands in a gesture that looks like a referee calling traveling in basketball begging her to “sum up” the story, something I eventually scream to her, “SUM UP!” Meanwhile I’ve taken in nothing she has said at all because I have been thinking to myself, “Is it too soon to scream sum up? Make the traveling gesture to try and speed things along? What is she talking about? Oh God, now she’s gone off on a tangent, I’m going to scream SUM UP at any moment, I can feel it starting to rise in my throat like that bad piece of fruit I ate earlier. Do you think it was bad? Can you get food poisoning from bad fruit? What is she saying now? Oh I give up. SUM UP!!!!” So you can understand that while I may have a look on my face of total comprehension as to what is being said or discussed, I know not one thing she has said.

Look, I know this isn’t good but listening I find is really hard. I don’t know if I have what I’ve always suspected, SAS (Short Attention Span) or what but more and more I find myself shocked at just how much I’m not taking in. Maybe my mind is just too full of really important stuff. Yeah, right. Anyone who reads this blog knows that the only claim to fame I have is that I know every lyric to Afternoon Delight by Starland Vocal Band. That will surely help me on Are You Smarter Than A 5^th Grader! No, I a-feared I just have lost the will and way to listen.

It doesn’t just happen with friends, it happens at work and in social settings just about the same. I find myself being introduced to someone and I even say their name back, “Hi John, very nice to meet you.” But then I start looking at the hem of their pants that has one pant leg longer than the other and the fact that they have obviously haven’t bought a tie in fourteen years and by the time I leave them, they could hold a gun to my head and I wouldn’t be able to tell you the person’s name.

I’m warning all of you right now. If you think you may have a crime happen to you, you do NOT want me as the eye witness. Not only will I not remember if they car was blue or green, I’ll contradict myself on who said what to whom and being obsessed with my own weight and height, I’ll have no idea what the attacker looked like at all because almost everyone just looks taller and in better shape than me.

On the whole I’m a good person. I try and go through life making people smile and interacting in a way that makes people feel good about being around me. But the more I’m on this planet the more I feel certain basic skills slipping away and listening is one of them. Don’t ask me what I just watched on television or even saw out on the street because these seem like some sort of ether that enter me, numb my mind for a moment and then waft on to their next subject without leaving a trace. So the next time if you’re talking to me and I look like I’m getting it, be suspicious. On the other hand, if I look like I’m constipated or my eyes are searing through you as if they’re trying to put you in a trance, then I just might be trying to really take in what you’re saying. You just never know and that’s what makes me so much fun to be around. (execute eye rolling) The lost art of listening – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Why You Should See Joan Rivers: A Piece Of Work – Don’t Get Me Started!

I admit it, I’m a documentary junkie. More when it’s about a specific person or a subject that interests me but what I find the more I watch actual documentaries is just how wrong reality television gets it and how we as a culture have begun to believe that reality television is a documentary when it’s just like any other television show that is produced, cast, edited and re-shot to make us believe it’s reality but if you peel away the thinnest layer you’ll find it couldn’t be further away from reality. I also know that people will not find it difficult to believe that I’m biased based on the fact that I’m a Jew and Joan Rivers is a gay icon but I would have to say that for anyone who wants fame and fortune or to know what it takes to maintain and sustain a career, stop looking at American Idol or Justin Beiber and you may just find out what becomes as they put it in the film, “A semi-legend” most. Why you should see Joan Rivers: A Piece Of Work – Don’t Get Me Started!

Although the youngsters of today think that this is the tiny woman who stands on red carpets and hawks big jewelry on QVC, from the start of this film those who know more about her roots and the fact that she is comedic royalty will discover that everything you suspected about Joan Rivers is true, she is one of the most driven women in show business. And guess what? She’s a good business woman.

As I sat in the dark laughing more than I have at any comedy movie I’ve ever seen I was also thrust into a world of an old school comedian who made it by her own sheer determination, a little thing called luck and fighting tooth and nail to keep holding onto her career all the while the establishment and others conspired to send grease down the wall she was holding onto with her finely manicured nails in their attempt to send her careening into oblivion. But they didn’t know who they were dealing with here. No matter how much shit they’ve thrown at her, her claws have kept her in place and you won’t find a chip in her polish.

“Do you want to see fear?” Joan Rivers asks as she opens up her calendar book to two pages that have nothing on them. When you see the schedule she maintains you marvel at her not because although she has a staff of assistants, agent and manager, but because you understand that every appointment was driven by Ms. Rivers herself on some level due to her own drive. She shows a day that she approves of on the calendar, one that has between four and six appearances, book signings and other meetings. You get that she’s not just talented, she’s smart and more than anything else she’s working…constantly.

I don’t know what the answer is to the fact that she seems to get overlooked by Show Business insiders when it’s she who helped define and create the comedic portion of that industry. Is it because she’s a woman? Is it because she’s told her version of the truth unabashedly and unashamedly for so many years? Who’s to say? I just think that what I’ve thought for years has been confirmed watching this movie. Joan Rivers deserves more from all of us because she has not just paved the way for other comedians back in the day but because she has continually forged new roads and taken us laughing in directions we had no idea were possible and has stayed more than current and ahead of the curve.

More than anything else, seeing her passion for her life and what she does made me look at my own life. Am I doing enough? Not a chance. Not when I see what this woman does every day to keep the Rivers machine going, supporting not only her own lifestyle but the industry that is Joan Rivers.

It’s sometimes easy to dismiss comedians as joke tellers and nothing more but I ask you to stop for a moment and understand what that person who got up on that stage to make you laugh came through in order to stand there. The braveness it takes and the fact that in a day and age where everything is manufactured for most comedians by a staff of writers, some are still doing it on their own and Joan Rivers has the thousands of jokes typed out on 3 by 5 cards to prove it.

As we left the theatre I felt as though I knew more about this woman I’ve watched for years and I wondered how she makes it all look so easy. Talent is the answer I suppose but whatever it is, I can only hope she continues doing it for years to come and that at some point she realizes that she is not a semi-legend but a full-fledged legend! Why you should see Joan Rivers: A Piece Of Work – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Gay Hollywood Doesn’t Get It – Don’t Get Me Started!

As I often do, I find myself wondering why it is that I’m not getting what I’m supposed to be getting as a card carrying gay. I watch movies and television shows and I read about how good, bad and ugly the networks are doing each year representing gays and I can’t help but think gay Hollywood doesn’t get it – Don’t Get Me Started!

Last week GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) came out with their report regarding which networks are representing us gays and lesbians the best. MTV found themselves as the big winner this year, receiving an “excellent” rating from the group. (Read the rest of the list here http://www.glaad.org/2010/nri) But what amazes me about these types of studies is that I wonder just who they’re supposed to benefit? Are we supposed to all suddenly stop watching Bravo (the gayest network to hit the airwaves since Lifetime Television for Women and Gay Men) and tune into the latest group of “Real Lifers” to see the token gay they’ve thrown in the mix this season and the rube who will be his nemesis throughout the season making for “excellent” (as rated by GLAAD) television? Count me out.

Also as someone who is watching more and more gay television (thanks to the addition of the Logo Network to my cable line up, an MTV network by the way) I can tell you that if I have to watch one more movie or series where the main gay character is a sensitive youth I’m going to puke. I get that some people had a life growing up this way and I get that when writers write they often pull from personal experiences but in my experience the least successful movies and series involve these thinly veiled and face lifted versions of the author. Talk about gays being narcissistic. Dorian Gray, your painting is calling you.

I think the problem is that the people who are creating these projects are gays of a certain age. That’s right, I’m calling the boys who are no longer boys out on this one. I get that I’m a forty-something gay and I also get that there are many times when I reference something in my writing people have no idea what I’m talking about. For example, to me I will always think of Bobby Brady and the Indian Boy who he brought baked beans to in a flashlight during their Grand Canyon episodes as the original Brokeback Mountain. But what we gays of age need to realize is that not only do the gays of today not get the Brady Bunch reference, the Brokeback Mountain one is becoming dated too. We need to do more besides create new “divas” for gays to idolize and emulate. Look, I love Lady GaGa as much as any of the other “little monsters” who follow her but it’s time for us to not only have these role models and artists who accept and embrace us but have some shall we say gays and ladies who aren’t appealing to our beaded, feathered boa and torched experience side of the gay stereotype.

The fact of the matter is that while some gays are still beat up on the playground, there are plenty of young gays who are coming out earlier on in their lives and it doesn’t matter to anyone. They don’t live tortured lives before their coming out, walking around as “sensitive” youths, they’re living their lives proudly from an early age and guess what? It’s working. That’s right, while I agree that we need to get things like Don’t Ask Don’t Tell repealed and that America should be ashamed that other countries that are supposedly “less developed” than us are granting same-sex marriage rights while we still sit firmly on our bible thumping roots, I think that’s for us older gays to take care of and meanwhile we need to do more to represent the gays of today in our media and artistry.

I love Glee as much as the next gay but that storyline about Kurt last year went from interesting to a what seemed more of a cathartic experience for the creators than the character or the show itself. I was Kurt, I should know. I was slammed into lockers, called names and clung to the theatre and music departments in my high school so that there was somewhere that I could feel accepted and acknowledged for my abilities. And once again, while I don’t doubt there are some gay kids who are experiencing that same thing today, I think that’s a hold out from our forty-something gay childhoods that are not as prevalent or relevant today. (And if they do a story arc of Kurt taking a date to prom next season in an attempt to be “cutting edge” and with today’s sensibilities I’d like to remind them they’re too late, too many gay youths have all ready begun and won this fight without Hollywood’s help.)

Isn’t it time we started seeing gay characters who are not “sensitive” “flamboyant” “sluts” or any of the other older stereotypes we complain about and propagate in our Hollywood representations? Isn’t it time to start making gay characters that are gay but have something else going for them besides just being “gay?” What I’m saying is that we need to start practicing what we preach and learning from the next generation more. Sure we can teach them about Stonewall and a lot of other things but what they can teach us is that the next generation of gays will be a stronger, self-confident group because they were not restricted to be defined by their gayness or coming out but because of what they as human beings brought to the world as human beings. Isn’t it time that art begins to intimidate life instead of continually giving us this old still life that doesn’t represent who gays are and becoming today and tomorrow? Gay Hollywood doesn’t get it – Don’t Get Me Started!

P.S. (And I don’t mean, Palm Springs) If you want to see some real gays on reality television, tune into The Fabulous Beekman Boys – lest you think I think everyone is getting it wrong, this show is amusing, heart-felt, the two men love one another and yet somehow it survives on who these people are as a whole and not just some finger snapping stereotype! http://planetgreen.discovery.com/tv/the-fabulous-beekman-boys/the-fabulous-beekman-boys.html

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“No, You’re The F*g!” Another Head Shaker In Human Existence – Don’t Get Me Started!

Location: The post office, mid-afternoon. When I entered the post office I could feel that the 110 degree temperature outside was affecting the temperature inside. It felt all of about five degrees cooler inside and the air was as stagnant as the line of unamused people waiting to be serviced by the two counter positions that were open appeared to be mini volcano waiting to blow. It took seconds to realize that although I was only about the fourth person in line, this was not going to be pretty. At one of the counter positions, the customer was waiting looking at his watch. The counterperson was not in evidence, leading me to believe that he was in the back looking for a package or something for the customer. At the other counter position a small man of Indian descent looked as if he was trying to explain something to the large woman who had a box atop the counter that was not sealed with items revealing themselves through the top of the open box. And so it would come to pass that fifteen minutes later the only thing that had moved in the line was the next person up who disgustedly left the post office and the rest of us who shuffled our weight from one hip to the other.

About this time a short chubby woman in postal uniform began to walk the line. “Are you mailing something? In or out of the country? Do you need help? It’s okay, you’re in the right line stay where you are.” While she addressed each person individually and I thought that it was a good idea to have some expedite the line, I know we were all secretly thinking the same thing, “If you have time to be out working the crowd, perhaps you should get your butt to one of the other counter positions and actually start REALLY helping those of us who have been on line this long.” Finally the large woman with the open box began to move from her position at the counter and before a sigh of relief could come from the line, in swooped a tall blond man who had not been the next in line in his late forties to the counter. Two from the front of the line, a very large man with dark hair and appeared to be in his forties as well bellowed, “I don’t know where the fuck you came from dude but you’re not next!” The swooping man looked back at the large man in disbelief that he had even questioned him and then responded with, “Ask that guy there who I am (gesturing to the other counter person who had finally returned from wherever he was) he told me to come over here.” Trying to save face the dark haired man mumbled something inaudible and then put his arm around a slight woman that was with him that gave the appearance of a cave man and his woman. When the tall blonde man left the counter he looked at the dark man and said, “Fuck you.” The dark man said something to him I couldn’t quite hear but then in response to what he said, as the tall blonde man passed me he looked back over his shoulder at the dark haired man and said, “No, YOU’RE the fag!” And I stood there, pissed off more than I could say.

Never mind for a second that everyone in the world thinks they’re too special to wait in a line. Never mind for a second that these men were in their forties behaving like children on a playground. Even take the fact that they called each other “fags” in this day and age and at their day and age on this planet. It made me wonder when we as a civilization would learn to be civil or if we ever will.

You can blame the way someone grew up or their socioeconomic circumstances but at the end of the day, none of it is really relevant to me. While I believe that by the time people become a certain age they should have acquired the skills to be out in public and interacting appropriately, the more I’m around people the less people I think are ready for human interaction and that I’m completely wrong. Maybe everyone needs to stay on their computers making their semi-anonymous comments to vent their frustrations and anger, even their misguided anger at themselves that they are not where they want to be or treated as they’d like to be treated. Could it be that in this age of technological wonderment like the iPhone with video calling and Facebook where you can find someone who wouldn’t speak to you in high school and be their cyber friend that we’ve forced ourselves to become cave dwellers who even though we’re all social networked out to the max, can’t hold a conversation with someone or behave in a line? I’ve oft said that when Twitter came about it seemed as though our short attention spans got even shorter because now instead of blogs or Facebook comments we were reduced to 140 characters to express ourselves and tell everyone what we were having on our hot dog at lunch instead of actually having lunch with and interacting with another human being.

Look, on the whole I’m a positive person but sometimes I just want to scream at people like the forty-something Neanderthals with their screams of “fag” at one another. I want to believe that I can have a meal with someone without one eye of theirs glued to their phone or texting someone. No more I say. No more will I tolerate bad behavior from myself or those around me. I will turn my phone off at dinner, I will interact with the people in front of me, I will give them the benefit of the doubt whenever possible and I will try to lead by example that although technology and everything else encourages us to be a cave dweller that we can actually spend times out of our caves interacting and creating a true civilization filled with civil interaction. In the meantime I’m thinking, “No, YOU’RE the fag!” is this really the best this guy could come up with? We must truly be getting weaker as a civilization even in our repartee, America better be careful because China or the Taliban may just get better at discourse than us and then where will we be? “No, You’re The F*g!” Another Head Shaker In Human Existence – Don’t Get Me Started!

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If They Asked Me I Could Write A Book – Don’t Get Me Started!

As I sit here typing away (often every day of my life) for not only my own amusement but for those of you who are reading my blog posts I have oft thought that I should compile my fave posts and create a book of them to be published. In fact, I did just that and even sent it to not only gay, gay, gayer than gay publishers but publishers in general, all to be told, “Thanks but no thanks” but now that I’ve read that Mike “The Situation” from Jersey Shore is coming out with a book my anger is once again brought to the surface and I find myself singing the lyrics from that classic Rogers and Hart musical, Pal Joey, “If they asked me I could write a book” – Don’t Get Me Started!

I know that they say that everyone has “one book in them” but as far as I’m concerned, as I look over the past four years of writing close to 850 blog posts and essays I find that once again while you may have it in you and even get it out of you onto a save file on your computer, you’re not good enough unless you’ve been on a reality show or shtupped Tiger Woods. Since I have no chance of having a child with Mel Gibson and then having him berate me on a recorded phone conversation anytime soon and never having been to Alaska to comment on the Bristol and Levi relationship as someone who knew them from high school, my chances of getting a book deal lie roughly between those old two friends of mine, gay thin to none (for you straightees the translation is: slim to none).

What gets me is with all of the new e-books, Kindles and iPads to read books on can someone explain to me why there is less and less that I want to read? I love a good biography or to tell the truth an autobiography but I never even watched The Hills so why would I want to read about those people and does anyone think that they actually wrote the book themselves? There was a time a “ghost writer” was someone who literally no one ever saw or heard, they were the Marni Nixons of the literary world but now everyone knows that no one writes their own book alone and usually don’t even know what’s in it until it published and they see what the real writer of the book wrote! Still we all know that sex sells and I suppose if you’ve ever been a Playboy bunny you have a better chance of getting a book deal than some forty-something gay who claims to be the gay Erma Bombeck for his generation.

I’ve always had these visions of doing “readings” in a Borders or in a lecture hall. Maybe it was all those years of watching Sex In The City that made it seem plausible for it to happen. I tried getting the local and not so local gay papers to pick me up as a feature in their periodicals but again, no dice. So what’s a gay to do?

I’m hardly one to think that like Little Richard I invented everything but I had to laugh when a recent visit to a gay site included the word, “straightee” in one of its headlines. I can’t sue or really lay claim to it I suppose but I’m pretty sure that I came up with this term years ago and its appeared in my writing so much that I even had someone write to me and ask me to stop using it as it annoyed her as a straight woman. So someone must be reading my stuff, right? And I suppose I should be flattered that someone liked it enough to steal it but I usually reserve handing material over for free to friends who live in other states. Hell, I have one friend who is still using my lines from the 80’s to entertain his friends and cocktail acquaintances. Still I guess I need to give them the benefit of the doubt and perhaps they came up with it all on their own. Yeah, right.

Look, maybe the publishers of books and magazines are right to send me letters turning down my efforts but still I have hope that perhaps I’ll fall down a well or have to cut my own arm off so that I’ll become interesting enough to write and have it published. Until then I guess I’ll leave the published works to the likes of those apparently far more saleable than myself, like Mike “The Situation.” If they asked me I could write a book – Don’t Get Me Started!

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If I’m So Gay, Why Am I Not Having Brunch More? – Don’t Get Me Started!

I have to admit that I’m all for some of the gay stereotypes. That’s right, I don’t want to give up our reputations for having a sort of panache that the straightees only dream about, I want to be known for being the disposable income people (even if I’ve never had it) and I want a lot more of the pithy things that people used to associate with gays before the secret came out that we gays are really no different than the straightees in many cases. BORING! Recently I wrote a blog about how my new guilty pleasure is watching the Logo Network for us gays. I have to admit that the acting in the “gay” movies is awful and that goes for the “gay” series as well but a recent weekend of watching the soap Noah’s Arc and The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life Of Ethan Green on Logo and I started to get very depressed. If I’m so gay, why am I not having brunch more? – Don’t Get Me Started!

When I was young I thought that all gays were destined for a life of cocktail, dinner and brunch parties. I really didn’t think about orgies (much to the surprise I’m sure of some of my fellow gays)I thought of all the very Noel Coward type events I would be going to when I became a mature gay man. I longed for it. I wanted to discuss gay cinema (for it was too too to be called simply “movies” at least in my mind) and I wanted to stand around trading clever repartee until I had a stitch in my well toned side. I’m still waiting.

I went to a dinner party, that’s right A dinner party ONCE when I was directing for Virginia Opera. It was being held by one of the gayest and biggest executives at the Opera. So I duded myself up and I went. When I got there I immediately felt something in the air. The stench of a lot of cologne on a lot of men with dyed hair and sucked in cheeks (yes, both sets) looking down their noses at one another and especially anyone who had just walked into the room. There was an anemic looking boy who couldn’t have been more than eighteen who was “manning” the bar without a shirt on. He should have had the shirt on as he was nothing to look at with it off but it didn’t stop the men from ogling him and cooing over him as if he was the hottest thing ever. I tried to start a conversation with a few of them but to no avail. As I was the youngest one next to the bartender at this party it made me more of a target than the life of the party. I would find myself staring at their toupees while they stared at my crotch and the whole evening just made me feel as though I couldn’t shower enough when I finally excused myself after the fruit compote. Thus killed my visions of the Noel Coward gay dinner gatherings that I felt life owed me as a gay man.

But when I watch these movies and series on Logo everyone is always having everyone else over for dinner and absolutely meeting up for brunch every Sunday. My spouse of what will be twenty-two years soon and I have dinner with my parents every Sunday. (After all, I’m a good Jewish boy!) We have more straight friends than we have gay friends and to be honest with you, my one attempt to go to a gay event to try and build up (or even start) a gay roster of friends here in Vegas was a disaster. There I was with a bunch of twenty-somethings who only wanted to talk about the gym and how much they loved going to the gym. Ugh. What’s next? Talk of football and basketball trades instead of talk of gay trade?

Look, I’m a forty-something gay man is it so wrong of me to want to have friends who live here who meet for brunch? Where do I find these people who want to chat and chew instead of have sex and starve? When I’m in LA with my pals there I admit there are dinner parties and brunches but not living there all the time always makes me feel like the country gay among the city gays. I don’t know who anyone is talking about (as they only use everyone’s first name unless they’re trying to impress you because it’s someone on a television show which usually leaves me with a quizzical expression on my face because I don’t know who’s starring in the latest USA movie nor do I really care). So what’s a gay to do? I know how to gesture with a mimosa in my hand, I know which fork to use, I’m all gayed up with no place to go and I’m not amused. If I’m so gay, why am I not having brunch more? – Don’t Get Me Started!

Rudeness Is Not Reserved For The Young – Don’t Get Me Started!

I used to think that people behaving badly had to do with their upbringing and/or their youth. In fact I’m going to just go out on a limb here and say that I really thought that most of the bad or rude behavior in the world was something done by the young. Not that I’m THAT old but you get the idea. But a recent outing showed me that I was completely wrong. Rudeness is not reserved for the young – Don’t Get Me Started!

Here in Las Vegas there is a theatre under the stars as it were in the Red Rock Springs Preserve. The amphitheatre is nestled in the desert with seemingly nothing for miles. Here every summer different theatre groups put on productions for the annual series. You can bring a picnic, a bottle of wine and enjoy not only an evening of theatre (if it’s good…there have been several second acts we’ve never seen when the shows are bad) and you can enjoy not only cooler temps but looking up and seeing a sky filled with stars that make you feel like I think the first pioneers crossing the country must have felt.

We try to go to at least one show a season and recently we took my parents too. The show was Ain’t Misbehavin’ and there was no intermission (therefore we saw the entire show). From about the third song in the show I started to hear giggling and a rather loud conversation going on right behind us. The conversation wasn’t about the show at first, it was about the ballgame the man’s voice was talking about missing. Then there was some talking about someone who was sitting across from us, “She’s so fat. Look at her just lying on the grass.” More giggling. Several songs in I did what anyone does who has an annoying person sitting behind them does who doesn’t want to interrupt the show. I turned around and gave that look – you know the one, the one that says, “Yes, we all here you now shut up.” Much to my surprise it was a man in his seventies and three women that were with him all in their seventies as well. I don’t know what they were drinking but whatever it was they continued throughout the show and the more they drank the louder they got. They started complaining about the show, giggling that they were looking on their phones for ball scores when everyone was told to shut off their phones. They made disparaging remarks about the performers and continued to loudly discuss the large woman lying on the grass. At one point the man said, “The only reason I’m staying to the end of this show is to see if they have to bring a forklift to get her up and out!” At which point my spouse turned around and said, “Okay, we get it. Now can you be quiet?” While they stayed mostly quiet for the remainder of the show after that (with the exception of counting down how many minutes were left in it) I found myself more than a little spun up about the whole experience.

Look, if you don’t want to be at a show or around other people because you don’t know how to behave, I don’t care how old you are, do everyone including yourself a favor and just leave. Why would these people stay? The tickets were not that expensive and if they weren’t enjoying it what was the point? Were they just waiting for the buzz to wear off so that they could get in their car with the handicapped license on it and drive home? I don’t care what the reason was I just wanted them dead. Well, okay maybe not dead but I wanted them to understand that they were complete inconsiderate morons.

I used to blame television for bad behavior at theatres (including movie theatres) because I think that people are so used to sitting in their living room, behaving however they want that they forget the common courtesies and behaviors that should be adhered to when in a public setting but more and more I think it’s just a whole lot of people who only care about themselves. I’ve read the studies that say that the generation today has such a sense of entitlement that they’re going to be one of the least productive generations we’ve ever had, thinking they’re special even though they’ve never done anything special in their lives, just thinking that because their parents convinced them they could win American Idol. But that does nothing to explain the elderly people we encountered.

So here’s the deal. I don’t care if it’s at a restaurant, a theatre or even just at the grocery store. It’s time someone told all of you that YOU ARE NOT THE ONLY PERSON IN THE WORLD OR THE ONLY PERSON THAT MATTERS! Perhaps, just perhaps if people stopped worrying so much about themselves we might be able to fix the many problems facing our country today. In watching a documentary called, Schmatta: Rags To Riches on HBO about the garment district in New York, I was not so much astonished as much as I was saddened to learn that in the 1970’s 95% of the clothing sold in America was made in America but by 2008, only 5% of the clothing sold in America is made here. We’ve let all of the ingenuity and creating of goods and services go out of the country while we’ve all been busy trying to get on reality shows to make our fortune. Meanwhile Wall Street and the people who supposedly represent us have sold us out to line their own pockets in gold. And while I can’t fix that (and who knows if anyone can) I believe the one thing we can do is be a little bit considerate of others, or at the very least shut up when you’re at the theatre no matter what your age! Rudeness is not reserved for the young – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Gay Or Homophobe? These Days It’s Getting Harder To Tell – Don’t Get Me Started!

At the risk of sounding as though I’m opening up a  museum of Gay Yesteryear I’ll go ahead and say that although more people were in the closet back in the day it was somehow easier to tell who was who. You see there was no secret handshake or anything (or blowjob as some uneducated straightees suppose) but there was just a, well, a thing that when you came across another gay (or as they used to say, “family” or “friend of Dorothy” both meaning the person was gay) you knew it, they knew it and that was that. But today things are getting increasingly harder to determine about a lot of things and extremes seem to be meeting more in the middle than you ever expected them to so sometimes you have to ask yourself gay or homophobe? These days it’s getting harder to tell – Don’t Get Me Started!

Believe me when I say that I’m delighted that kids are standing up for themselves, taking their same sex date to the prom and all the other advancements we’ve made (yes, although we have many miles to go, it would just be stupid to not acknowledge the advancements in rights and acceptance the GLBT community now enjoys). But with that means that we’re also losing some of our “cool” factor. There was a time when we gays were the only one you went to for fashion advice or where to throw that throw pillow but nowadays as loathed as I am to admit it, some of those straightees out there are just as good and in some cases better than us at all those things! Horror! (Clutch imaginary pearls at neckline) It really feels as though someday (though perhaps not in my lifetime) that sexual orientation is going to be seen more for what it is, more fluid, not so “Straight or Gay? Please check one box only!” Yet God love ‘em (cause no one else does and I even suspect Jesus whom they claim loves them gets annoyed with them spouting hate in his name) for the most part the religious right remain completely unenlightened or willing to think about things like sex and how man came into being, clinging tightly to their leather bound book.  In other words, there are still those out there who hate us gays just because we’re gay.

The amazing thing is how many of the gay haters have turned out to be gay. Well, sort of. If you were a gay man in Congress (aren’t they all at this point – eye roll) and you wanted to hide it from everyone in the world including your own self acceptance wouldn’t you vote against anything that seemed as though it was going to give gays rights? Of course you would because your own self loathing would make it impossible for you to deal or support anything that had to do with gay because you lived your life in fear of being outed which always ends up happening by the way and usually not in a normal way, it’s always male prostitutes and crystal meth or renting a boy to carry your “luggage” or being arrested in an airport bathroom trying to get or give a blow job to the guy in the stall next to you. Silly Closet Gays, when will they ever learn?

So we all get why closeted gays rage against out gays, right? But what about the people you first meet shake their hand and there’s that look in their eye? They say that most people know if they’re going to have sex with someone within the first three seconds. I think it has to do with the pheromones or just our animal instincts taking over but I think it’s true. Now it doesn’t mean you’re going to act on it, it just means that you’d do the nasty if the situation was right. Recently I met someone I had never met before and I shook his hand and while I didn’t think that the three second sex meter went off, another meter seemed to go off.  And then I wasn’t sure which meter had gone off and I wondered if there was somewhere you could go to get your intuition serviced. In what seemed like less than three seconds I couldn’t tell if he was gay or a homophobe who really didn’t even want to be shaking my hand at all. I was peering into his eyes (the supposed windows to one’s soul and perhaps the reason for him being uncomfortable) and I’ll be damned if I couldn’t figure it out. There was a strong intensity about our locked gaze that was certain but is the line between attraction and repulsion as thin as the line between love and hate? For the rest of our time in the same room we didn’t look at each other at all and he left while I was in another room but still I wondered if the lines that we once knew so well were suddenly being colored outside of and it wasn’t all that comfortable for me. I guess there’s a part of me that lives in the past that finds comfort in the two box world of gay or straight. And just writing that makes me feel as antiquated as a stereotype of all gays liking antiques. I’ll never know what was going through that guy’s mind but it seems to me that the times they are a-changin’ again and I’m not sure if I like it. Gay or homophobe? These days it’s getting harder to tell – Don’t Get Me Started!

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How Do You Look At Your Week? – Don’t Get Me Started!

I never thought I would be one of those nine to five people. (Although I did contemplate a nice wedge shoe and recreating the entire opening sequence to the movie Nine To Five in my head more than once) And even now I like to think of myself as going to an office five days a week but not one of those cubicle kids. (I know I’m a snob) Still there’s something that has occurred without me even planning it that I think could be part of the Corporate Culture of America and I’m not so sure I like it. How do you look at your week? – Don’t Get Me Started!

When I was doing theatre I would always have Monday and sometimes Tuesday off. This was great because all of the drones were working Monday through Friday so you could basically get anything done you wanted in record times without hoards of people because you were on a schedule that most of the rest of the planet was not on. I took this for granted. The first time I was going to do something on my weekend (the real weekend that everyone else was having) I was in shock. “Who were all these people? Where did they come from and didn’t they know that they had no business clogging up my lines at the bank, post office and car wash?” “How dare they” was the only thought in my head. It was more than a bit depressing. I was now officially a drone. Trying to figure out how to get around the “normal folk” and their way of thinking is not easy. I found myself going Saturday morning at 6am to Walmart just so that I could avoid the masses and sometimes even that didn’t work!

But besides being on a schedule that so many other people are on, it’s the schedule of the week itself that has got me down a little bit. I never wanted to be one of those people with a coffee mug that said, “Happy Hump Day” or any of the other office clichés that abound like a live action Dilbert cartoon. Still I found myself more and more falling into that trap, that trap that can only catch the foot of someone in Corporate America today.

Sunday night I start trying to see if anything has come through via email or been put on anyone’s calendar for the next day so that I can mentally prepare myself. (Now make no mistake about it, being an Assistant and having a phone means that you’re looking at emails the minute they come in no matter what day of the week or time of day it is) And although my team is great about not contacting me on the weekend unless they really need something, I have created my own mental illness about checking my phone constantly waiting for a crisis to arrive that I can solve. I have begun the process of weaning myself off of phone watching during things like dinner, afternoon naps and the occasional sleeping late on a Saturday morning. The first step is admitting you have a problem.

Monday and Tuesday I’m like a force to be reckoned with as I go through my day moving, shaking and generally cleaning up like Mr. Clean without the fully bald head. I can usually get myself through these days with positive upbeat energy but then comes Wednesday and the whole “hump” thing makes me feel like Quasimodo (NOT the cuter cartoon version, think Charles Laughton). I suddenly feel the weight in the middle of my back making me walk a little hunched over (like Uncle Morty, looking for change people have dropped on the street). At this point I’m normally thinking that the week is basically over. If there were any good news or anything good going to happen to me it would have happened all ready but once Wednesday hits, you may as well write off the week.

Thursday is perhaps the most annoying day of all. It’s not the beginning of the week and it’s not Friday. Thursday must have low self-esteem because let’s face it, if you were going to pick a day to be, Thursday would be everyone’s last choice. It has no real personality, it’s waiting on Friday to give it a sense of validity for even being a member of the team. Screw Thursday.

Friday has had way to much hype about it that it can never live up to in my opinion. You think that Friday is some magical doorway into the weekend of whatever you like or want to do when in actuality Friday usually is just lulling you into a false sense of security all day so that late Friday afternoon it can take you by surprise and screw you up the ass (without lubricant). Every project that could have been done on Thursday doesn’t really become “needed” or “urgent” until Friday afternoon. No wonder Thursday has such self esteem problems! It’s there waiting to serve and yet no one wants to take advantage of it. Thursday is always sitting on the bench at the big game and then Friday comes in like some sort of heavy hitter and expects everyone to just bow down and do whatever whim Friday comes up with like a rider on a contract for Courtney Love, asking for room temperature freshly pumped goat’s milk and a rug that looks like a pink French poodle in her dressing room.

There are times I wish that I was one of those, “I live my life thankful for every moment and the exciting ride it provides.” Maybe I need a near death experience or something. (God forbid, it would kill my mother) But I don’t want to be one of those people who watch the weekly calendar going by trying to get to Friday or begrudgingly giving Thursday any of my best work. I know that only I can make this change but suddenly I feel like fake crying like Chris Brown and singing “Man In The Mirror.” Anyone else with me? How do you look at your week? – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Confessions Of A Price Tag Teller – Don’t Get Me Started!

I have one of the most annoying habits ever. When anyone gives me a compliment on what I’m wearing or what I smell like or how my hair is for some unknown reason I immediately tell them how much it cost. That’s right, if you were to say, “Wow, you smell good today.” First I would say, “Too much cologne?” as I made a cringey sort or face waiting for your reaction and then I would say, “It’s Hermes, whatever their newest one is, it was over $100 at Nordstrom but I found it online for something like $60.” Immediately I regret the words that came out of my mouth. I know in my head (too late) that the proper response is “Thank you.” And yet time and time again I feel the need, no it just sort of involuntarily happens, that I blurt out the price and a bunch of additional information that no one could care less about the item. Arghhh! Confessions of a price tag teller – Don’t Get Me Started!

I am truly trying to be conscious of this behavior and change it because I know that when other people do it to me I always just feel, well a little bad for them. That’s right, all of my extensive years of reading one third of one self help book tells me that by giving the price when someone compliments you it is subconsciously sending the message that you don’t think you deserve something that is whatever the price of the item is. While the Jewish part of me would think that getting cologne at a cheaper price is just good Jewry! That’s right, I’m conflicted.

I know it’s all coming from a good place inside me. I guess the thought that runs through my head when someone asks about something I’m wearing is that they are looking to get it for themselves. Maybe that’s why I over-information them? True, I don’t really want to see myself coming and going (as they used to say in 1940’s movies about women wearing the same dress and running into one another about the town) but at the same time I am by nature a care giver so I think I’m doing it to save them the trouble of going to more than one store to find the item. Perhaps I need to create an “app” for my iPhone that allows me to just plug into the retailers in the area who have the items I’m wearing and then somehow magically beam it to anyone that asks about it. “Oh, this shirt, let me see (he feverishly tries to get his iPhone screen to light and begins pushing buttons) Yes, there’s one more at the Banana Republic on Rampart in your size and the sales person, Rudolpho is holding it for you under you name.” That’s how I see it in my head but I’ve begun to realize that to everyone else it just seems well, here we go, needy, low self-esteem, uncomfortable.

While I think I’m giving out useful information, the people I’m telling are probably just making conversation. So it makes me look like, “Oh this shirt? I didn’t spend a lot of money on it because you know I don’t deserve nice things, so I waited and got it on sale and probably still paid too much for what I’m worth but you can see it has a tiny hole over the shoulder so it’s still damaged goods like me and I wouldn’t want you to think that I think I’m really better than you by thinking that it’s an actual Gucci, it’s a Guchchi which is a knock off of a knock off but I still think it looks okay, do you?”  Oh dear God, is that not the most exhausting stream of subconciousness ever??? Is it any wonder I don’t sleep at night?

The thing is that in my waking more sane hours of the day I don’t really think I’m not worthy of having nice things and I don’t know that’s the real reason I tell everyone the price of everything I own. If I had only really expensive things I guess people might think that I’m bragging but that’s not usually the case. Usually when people do ask me about things I have that are worth greater value I tend to clam up about it. I have a pair of $400 sunglasses, there I’ve admitted it. And I haven’t worn them in months and months. But I only got them because someone gave me a gift card and I had to get something and everything else in the store was so far out of my price range so why not get something a little extravagant but that lasts instead of that pair of Capri leather pants by a designer I can’t pronounce and will be out of style by the time I get them off the showroom floor? Curses, I’ve done it again.

Look I know I have a problem. Hell, I know I have a lot of problems but isn’t it all our little problems or “idiosyncrasies” that make us who we are? Or am I just rationalizing irrational behavior? Oy, I don’t know. I’m too exhausted to think about this anymore. I’ll just sit back, relax and drink my coffee. Which I got at Starbucks but I only got a tall and I ask for two shots and a pump or vanilla with a splash of soy and that way it’s much cheaper than a latte but it still tastes good. I know, more than you needed to know. Confessions of a price tag teller – Don’t Get Me Started!

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It’s People Like The LDS Woman Caller Into NPR That Lets Me Know I’m Right To Think They’re All Morons!  – Don’t Get Me Started!

So my spouse and I were driving in the car listening to NPR (National Public Radio) as we often do. The topic they happened to be discussing was Proposition 8 and the opposition to it. For those of you who don’t know, this is the Proposition that was passed in California taking away the right for gays to marry in that state. Now there has been a lot on Proposition 8 (which is often called, “Proposition H8TE”) and while I’m sure I see more about it than my straight counterparts I don’t go out of my way looking to see what’s going on in the fight against it every minute of every day (God bless them, that’s what all those websites that gather your information and hound you to death via email about every minute detail of what’s going on with an issue, a political party or candidate are for apparently – I receive way too many of these emails every day). Anyway a woman called in and as we listened to her speak I discovered that it’s people like the LDS woman caller into NPR that lets me know I’m right to think they’re all morons! – Don’t Get Me Started!

Before you angry folks write in to me telling me that I’m doing what the gays hate people doing to them, using one isolated incident or stereotype to group the entire lot of Mormons just don’t.  I don’t care what you think, I’ve been around a lot of Mormons in my time and I’m sticking to my guns like a member of the NRA on this one. For those of you who don’t know, the whole Proposition 8 movement in California was heavily funded by the LDS Church. There’s documentation up the wazoo on this one so if you don’t believe me, just Google it and I’m sure you’ll find all of the documentation on it including information about a documentary that was produced about it. In other words, don’t take my word for it.

So this woman who sounded very sheepish on the phone (no surprise there, only women with no self esteem or lack of common sense would be a member of any church or organization that has such little regard for them but that’s why we’re here in America, to allow morons to be morons). She began by saying that she didn’t believe the LDS Church was responsible for funding Proposition 8 and then went on to give some of the usual stereotypical, “I’m about to slam you gays but first I’m going to lull you into a sense of thinking I like you by saying that I have gay friends.” So she gets all of that out of the way and talks about how she doesn’t really know if she feels homosexuality is wrong but thinks that children should have a mother and a father to be raised properly (don’t they always go back to the children?) even though she’s a single parent so with all the typical stuff she was saying I found myself rather bored until she said the following (and I’m not quoting exactly here because I didn’t have a recorder or my reporter notebook handy), “There are hardcore gays who are born that way and then there are people who become gay because they don’t do well with the opposite sex so it’s easier to find someone of your own sex to be with.” Really?!? Really, Miss Uninformed Utah 2010? I couldn’t believe what I was hearing but more than that I couldn’t believe that anyone whether they were Mormon or any other religion would actually believe this crap. I don’t think she came up with this on her own and the only thing I can think is that she probably thinks she’s won the Irish Sweepstakes from that email she got in the mail and has every “As Seen On TV” product and can’t figure out why she doesn’t have washboard abs like the people in the commercials.

What are we intelligent people supposed to do with people like this roaming the earth? Honestly, I’m not one of those people who feel I’m smarter than everyone else in the world but I know I’m a hell of a lot smarter than this woman. Even with the fact that I have no idea where Canada is I know that there aren’t “hardcore” gays born at birth and other gays who turn gay because they can’t get the opposite sex to date them. This is why a little education is always dangerous. This is why we can’t do enough to let people know that stupid statements such as these have no basis in fact, they’re just stupidity made up by the stupid and retold and regurgitated by the people who are even more stupid than the people who come up with this crap. I’m all for embellishing a story to make it more interesting but spouting theories that have no basis in anything just seems as though someone should be sitting in the corner with a pointy “Dunce” cap on, right?

I know it’s a free country and that everyone is entitled to their opinion and in a way I’m glad this woman gave hers as it hopefully showed some people who were listening just how not smart all of the opposition is to giving homosexuals full rights in this country. Sure there are plenty of smart ones who find ways to create laws and cut us homosexuals out of the supposed, “all men are created equal” promise but they couldn’t get as far as they have without their moron minions pumping cash into their causes and spreading their stupidity. It’s people like the LDS woman caller into NPR that lets me know I’m right to think they’re all morons! – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Waiting For Oprah To Give Me My Big Break – Don’t Get Me Started!

I knew from the beginning when my mother forwarded me the information about Oprah Winfrey’s new network looking for people to compete to have their own show on her new network that this was going to be a competition filled with thousands if not hundreds of thousands or people looking for this opportunity to change their life. Of all the people I know in my life, only about six of them DON’T think they should have their own show so you multiply it by the masses and you get the Oprah Winfrey contest that is still raging at the moment with my hat tossed into the ring of fire that is this competition. Waiting for Oprah to give me my big break – Don’t Get Me Started!

While anyone who knows me can tell you, I love running my mouth. I’ll talk about almost anything (including topics I have little to no knowledge about whatsoever). I’m one of those dreaded theatre people who love the sound of their own voice, though I happily admit that I love the sound of my own voice and therefore feel as though that absolves me from any wrongdoing. You know, sort of like if an alcoholic admits he has a drinking problem, in my opinion you’ve done all you need to do. No meetings, no putting down the hooch, you’ve admitted you have a problem and I say, “Good for you.”

So I pondered what type of show I thought would be interesting. I pondered it for more than thirty minutes before I came up with what I thought was not only a fun idea for a show but a much needed show on any network. I would become the Personal Assistant to everyday people. That’s right, how many times have you common folk wanted to not take calls from certain people, have someone help you organize your day so that you could fit in that workout and all the while help you pick out a perfect dress for your office cocktail party and be your date? I’m all of that and a bag of rather gourmet chips as the kids used to say. The more I thought about it, the more it made sense to me that this was more than a good idea for a show, it was a GREAT idea. I would become a modern day Dolly Levi of sorts to the public at large! Need a violin tuned, I’m on it, need fundraising done for your kid’s soccer teams, I’m on it. The list goes on and on and I think it could make for quite the entertaining programming.

So I watched as the voting period began and was disgusted by the front runners who I suspected has hired the homeless or some sweat shop kids to click to vote for them. While some ended up with literally millions of votes, I was pleased with my 9,000 votes. Surely that is enough votes to get me noticed by the casting people at the new Oprah network, no? I don’t know.

Last Friday they chose the top five vote getters from online and they added three additional top vote getters to the mix. Next they’re going to chose thirty-two additional semi-finalists from the videos online and the in person auditions. I’ve looked at several of the videos and I’ve scrolled through the many pages online sizing up the competition and I have to say that I think I have a good shot at becoming one of the thirty-two. After they bring the forty possible contenders to LA for a week for things like psychological exams they’re going to narrow the field down to ten people to compete on the air.

I don’t have a post-it on my mirror telling me the Oprah people are going to call. I tend to present the whole, “Why the hell not me” attitude to my friends and family as they roll their eyes. But when I first get up in the morning, I do think about the theme song for my new show, the challenges I’ll be faced with when I’m part of the ten competing on the actual show to get your show and I think no, I know I’d make good television. So cross your fingers, don’t change your socks and light candles, whatever you do to make things happen because I can use all the mojo and positive vibes I can get as the Oprah and Mark Burnett team decide on the additional contestants. Waiting for Oprah to give me my big break – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Wow, I Haven’t Been Called “Fa**ot” (To My Face) In Years – Don’t Get Me Started!

So there I was, filling a five gallon water bottle with water at one of the many do-it-yourself stands here in Vegas. I had just come from working out and it was 100 degrees out even though the evening sun was setting. I was sort of just sweating and staring out at the traffic mindlessly when out of my peripheral vision I saw something moving. I turned to look and it was a guy riding a bike. I noticed he had ear buds in his ear and didn’t really notice much else, including the yell, “What are you looking at faggot?” It was too late to say anything back because he was all ready down the sidewalk on his no-name bike that appeared too small for his large frame. It was a quick moment that passed and as I got back into my car I thought, “Wow, I haven’t been called ‘faggot’ (to my face) in years” – Don’t Get Me Started!

When you write a blog as I’ve written for this many years you get every comment in the book. You get the people who love you, the people who hate you and even much to my surprise the people that want to date you. I take great pride in the comments people make when they feel as though I have “struck a cord” with them or somehow helped them in some way. How can that not make you feel great? I also love the hate filled, bible quoting tirades people go on when leaving comments. I take great delight that they’re usually misspelled, have bad grammar and really just want to tell me that I’m going to hell and that Jesus would still like to be my friend. Some just tell me to stop doing homosexual “acts” (which always makes me think that they think I’m a Liza impersonator or something in nightclubs, not sex for some reason) and then I’ll be a good person. I love all comments and usually unless I think they’ll be hurtful to my readers, I allow all the comments to stay. Some people ask me why I leave the hate-filled diatribes on. The reason for this is that in most cases the people make themselves look completely ridiculous (and you know I love that) but I also realize that when you put yourself in the public eye that it isn’t always the most glamorous or smartest eye that is viewing you. If that eye is a small dim lit room filled with the glow of a twelve inch monitor on a snack tray with sixteen cats at their feet and Cheetohs stained fingers, you have to realize that it’s them with the problem not you and allow yourself to take the good with the bad.

As a kid I was called, “faggot” every day in school for the entire time I was there, sometimes several times in the same day. I have even been called it in my adult life (but not in years and have never associated with gay people who use it with one another either) so when this incident happened I couldn’t really get my head around what I was hearing nor how I was feeling. The word is a word designed to denigrate the person it’s hurled at, make them feel “less than” or awful but Christ, I’m in my forties and I left all of that self-doubt and any self loathing years ago in an airport in Cleveland (I think it was Cleveland, can’t be sure, who can remember?). What I’m trying to say is that the word holds absolutely no power over me whatsoever anymore. So should I have hurled back a comment like, “No, you’re the faggot!” or perhaps, “I may be a faggot but I’m not interested in you, loser.” Neither of those seems like the right choice and in fact the more I thought about it the more I realized that it didn’t really even require a response from me. I wouldn’t have felt as though I was “fighting back” because I don’t feel I have anything to fight about with a thirty year old riding a bike that looks as though it was designed for a six year old. What would I achieve by even getting close to engaging him in a conversation or battle of dare I call them “wits” when I was clearly the only one equipped with those in this case? I can’t change his mind I don’t care enough about him to even try. Does this make me less of a crusader for gay rights? I don’t think so. I think that what this experience did was just remind me that yes there are still people out there who use this word and think they’re hurting you with it. No surprise there. The only real surprise was that I felt nothing. (Not to be too Morales from A Chorus Line) Wow, I haven’t been called ‘faggot’ (to my face) in years – Don’t Get Me Started!

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I’m Proclaiming Today National “Benefit Of The Doubt Day” – Don’t Get Me Started!

I know that I’ve spent most of my life with one eyebrow raised in a sort of disbelief at everything anyone was telling me. Whether it was someone telling me on a phone what a great deal I was getting with the anti-virus protection I was purchasing for my computer and an additional program that had to be ordered as well for an additional $49.99, I’ve begrudgingly purchased what I was sold all the while thinking to myself that this was just a salesman trying to sell me without any sense of really giving me a deal or something I absolutely had to have in my life. The same goes for when friends tell me they met a man with the “largest dick they’ve ever seen” this is normally coming from one of my more promiscuous friends and if you just wait until next week he’ll regale you with a story about someone else who apparently REALLY had the largest piece of equipment EVER! So while I tend to be as one ex said about me when I was a mere twenty-one years old, “jaded beyond my years” I thought it would be nice to greet a day with a childlike sense of wonder that I never had even as a child. I’m proclaiming today national “Benefit of the Doubt Day” – Don’t Get Me Started!

There will be no parades, no funding required for this day and not even a rubber bracelet with the words, BOTDD on them. No, this is about a mindset, a way of looking at the world and offering the fellow human beings in this race of life a chance to not be seen as some sort of evil doer but as someone who is perhaps just not informed or God love them, what we used to call, “a little slow.”

So to the person who raced me into the Starbucks this morning, all the while looking at their phone to seem as though they were not racing me into the Starbucks to get to the counter first, I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and just think that you happened to walking at a fast pace due to what you were reading on your phone and to get your day started. I’m also going to give you the benefit of the doubt that you didn’t know ordering seventeen different drinks all with special requests on them would hold up the line until the rest of us behind you were now late for work. I almost wanted to help you to your car with your seventeen blended coffee drinks but I couldn’t bring myself to go that far.

To the friend who called to “see how I was doing” and then never let me get a word in edgewise while talking about yourself for an hour and a half, I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and think that you initially did call to see how I was but then just caught up in telling me everything that was going on with you from grocery store exploits to problems with your husband’s third cousin whom I’ve never met nor do I care about, forgetting the reason you initially called was to find out how I was doing. You’re not evil and selfish as I would normally think, you’re not what they call “toxic” you’re not even self-centered…today because today is “Benefit of the Doubt Day.”

I guess what I’m learning is that I’m neither the “glass half full” or the “glass half empty” kind of person. I think I’m the guy who’s wondering how the spots got on the side of the glass and how best to clean them off without disturbing the water inside because no doubt I’m going to be the one who ends up cleaning everything up for myself and others. But wait, those thoughts are not suitable for today, this special day I’ve created, today there are no spots on the glass of life. Today feels as though the world is not conspiring against me to get on my last nerve. Even the people cutting me off as I drive down the road I feel are simply having a rough day today and not purposefully ignoring everyone else on the road but just trying to keep themselves a float. Today you are all absolved, forgiven but if Scarlett O’Hara has taught me anything, tomorrow is another day…so take advantage of the fact that I’m proclaiming today national “Benefit of the Doubt Day” – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Let’s Take Away Every Celebrity’s Driver’s License Starting With George Michael – Don’t Get Me Started!

So this past weekend at Gay Pride in London, George Michael crashes his car into a store front. The news was quick to report that it was a “posh” shoppe and I’m sure that the people who own it are pleased that they’re being listed as the “posh shoppe” George Michael ran into (insert eye roll). But with Lindsay Lohan going to jail after her violation on her probation (I sound like someone who has been to prison, “The edification of the mummification of the masturbation of the sentence heretofore…”) I started to think (as you know that I do) let’s take away every celebrity’s driver’s license starting with George Michael – Don’t Get Me Started!

I get that celebrities should be able to drive if they want to but time and time again they’ve shown that they just can’t. Think of all the trouble it would have saved Mel Gibson (well, until he opened up his mouth with his recent tirade on his girlfriend which included several times of calling her the ”N” word but also included apparently threatening to burn down her house after screwing her!) that guy just needs to be locked up, period. The thing is that these people make plenty of money to have a driver and in most cases a car and a driver so why don’t they just suck it up and do it?

I personally would love to have a car and driver. I would sit in the back seat and give them advice about how they’re driving and then tell them to take alternative routes and probably go through them like water (i.e., Holly Hunter in Broadcast News)but I think that if I had one it would get me out of a lot of trouble. Not only would I not get traffic tickets but I wouldn’t have to take the glare of my fellow motorists who for some reason aren’t all that wild about having a red Mini Cooper up their ass! I would love to leave the driving to someone else and when these celebs are going out on the town I don’t get why they don’t want to have someone else driving for them.

Let’s face it, for some of them I think that a judge should just make it mandatory. Take away their licenses and hold them at the county courthouse until they can’t get arrested in show business and are now the spokesperson for a brand of beef jerky. When they hit that point in their career then they can go ahead and have their driver’s license back. I’ll sit on the board of these hearings. Mel Gibson – denied, George Michael –denied, Joyce DeWitt – approved, give her the license back. See how simple it is?

Celebrities surround themselves with a bunch of sycophants they call an “entourage” who just tell them how right and wonderful they are all day long. Can’t any of these leeches, these “hanger-oners” drive? I mean, someone in the group must have more skills than complaining that the Pellegrino isn’t room temperature, right?

I’m going to make a vow right now that when I become famous, I mean really famous, that I will get a driver. You may hear stories of me in the tabloids for other types of exploits but the one embarrassment I will never suffer is getting out of a car showing that I have no underwear on nor will I be stopped for driving infractions which include drunken driving or running into a “posh shoppe.” Let’s take away every celebrity’s driver’s license starting with George Michael – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Two Weeks Of Text Messages for a Broken Hearted Friend – Don’t Get Me Started!

I’ve always found that I can get through almost anything as long as my teeth don’t hurt…or my feet. I guess that’s why hoof and mouth disease is so horrible. But while the above are annoying, nothing is worse than a bad relationship. I don’t care if it’s with a lover, a brother, a mother or a hairstylist. When your relationship is in trouble you not only feel awful you’re awful to be around. If you live close to a friend who is going through rough relationship times you can take them out and get them drunk, or take them out and get them sober but if you live in a different state you just don’t have those options. While you should never take any sides when a friend’s relationship is having problems (your luck the one time you take a stand and tell your friend they’re with a real shmuck, they’ll get back together with them and then you’re screwed) when a friend of mine was going through some relationship rockiness I devised a two week plan of daily texts for a broken hearted friend. Feel free to use these with your friends (changing the pronouns as needed). I guess I SHOULD have written for Hallmark after all! Disclaimer: I’m not a therapist I just play one on the Internet.

Day One

-          I want you to make a list every day of the wonderful things about you. It’s too easy to turn in on yourself when something like this happens. I’ll start you off – you are smart, loving, intuitive and a wonderful friend…now you…

Day Two

-          Shakespeare – “To thine ownself be true, and it must follow as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.”

Day Three

-          From the musical “Wicked” – “Who can say if I’ve been changed for the better? But because I knew you I have been changed for good.”

Day Four

-          Whatever happens try to remember the good things the two of you have shared – doesn’t mean you have to go back just means you should celebrate what good came before and how it helped you discover what you want and need now

Day Five

-          Woody Allen – “To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering one must not love. But then one suffers from not loving. Therefore to love is to suffer, not to love is to suffer. To suffer is to love. To be happy is to love. To be happy then is to suffer. But suffering makes one unhappy. Therefore, to be unhappy one must love, or love to suffer or suffer from too much happiness. I hope you’re getting all of this down.”

Day Six

-          When you look in the eyes of someone you truly love and who loves you back, you should always see a reflection of yourself as an even better person than even you think you are or could be – you should never feel “less than” when you look in his eyes.

Day Seven

-          Love isn’t just about sex all the time but sometimes it just is and those are some really good times

Day Eight

-          Your self esteem shouldn’t be community property

Day Nine

-          Know when to shut up and know when to scream

Day Ten

-          Sometimes it’s cowardly to walk away but sometimes it’s even more cowardly to stay

Day Eleven

-          I have known you for years and you have never NOT been loveable

Day Twelve

-          Bad days can always be washed down with the memory of better days from your past and even better days waiting to happen to you

Day Thirteen

-          Sometimes even though love seems right on paper, you need what can’t be written down – chemical attraction

Day Fourteen

-          Everyone makes good and bad choices. Buying something for yourself? Good choice. Making yourself miserable? Bad choice.

Who’s to say what will really help when either you or a pal is going through relationship drama but one thing that I believe these texts did for him is that it let him know that he was not alone, that someone was thinking about him and that he was loved and though we all should know this on our own, sometimes, just sometimes we need a little help from our friends to see our own greatness.  

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An Open Letter To The Socially Inept – Don’t Get Me Started!

I don’t believe homosexuals are ruining America, I even have my doubts that right wing supposed Christians are ruining America. No, I believe I know who is ruining America. You, that’s who is ruining America. You know who you are, you are the people who don’t acknowledge when someone holds a door open for you, the ones who knock things off a shelf in a grocery store and leave it for someone else to pick up, you are the socially inept and here is an open letter to the socially inept – Don’t Get Me Started!

Dear Socially Inept,

I don’t know how the wolves managed to raise you but God bless them, and I mean this in the nicest way possible, they had no idea what they were doing. I’ve overlooked the fact that you chew with your mouth open due to your so-called upbringing and a host of other things but the time has come for you to realize that you are living in a place some of us like to call, “civilization” and there are a few common, let’s just call them courtesies that you should try to adhere to so that we can all get along, well, civilly.

When someone you don’t know but who is passing you on the street nods their head in your direction, they are not trying to kill you or sleep with you (necessarily) so the thing to do is simply nod back and go about your business. You don’t have to stop and chat, you don’t have to shake anyone’s hand, you just have to acknowledge that another person sharing the planet with you is acknowledging your presence, you moron. (Oops, that just slipped out)

If you are done with a Big Gulp or any other variety of beverage that comes in a container and you finish the beverage inside, quenching your thirst and adding those empty calories into your body for which you think watching The Biggest Loser will somehow drop off your body, when you have finished with it there are these things called, “garbage cans” for where you can deposit these used containers. The cup, bottle or carton does not belong in a parking lot next to where you had your car parked, they do not belong next to the garbage can because you missed the “three-pointer” you were trying to achieve in the thoughts that you are the Magic Johnson of the litter world, so do us all a favor and walk up to a garbage can (they’re located all over folks) and place the used container IN the garbage can.

Finally, there are these things in your car called, “turn indicators” when you depress the handle they make lights flash on the back of your vehicle to let the people behind you know if you’re going to the left or the right anytime soon so that they may drive accordingly. If you don’t use these at all, please begin to do so. If you are one of the people who only activate these “turn signals” after you’re all ready in the lane you’ve just moved into, it’s too late. I can’t use your turn signal once you’ve actually moved into the turn lane or have come careening in front of me causing me to have to slam my foot on the brakes in an effort to not shove my Mini Cooper and myself up your ass. Believe it or not, in most cases there are other people driving on the road too, that’s right, you are not the only one on the road and if you think I’m lying to you, try looking in that thing called a “rear view mirror” every once in awhile.

I know all of the above are foreign to you due to your upbringing or the fact that you hit your head on the toilet the last time you were throwing up from a night of Jello shots and greasy breakfast food at three in the morning but this is what the rest of us in this race called, “human” find to be common courtesies. They are the little things that make us believe that the world is going to keep on spinning and that we’re all going to find a way to get along with one another eventually. It’s not too much to ask for, just a little too much for you to give at the moment because you’re a moron, socially inept but the rest of us have hope for you asshole (and I mean that in the nicest way). An open letter to the socially inept – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Sometimes You Have To Look In The Mirror And Support Yourself – Don’t Get Me Started!

I’m one of the lucky ones. I grew up doing theatre where I was accepted no matter who I was. I always knew my family loved me, never questioned it even for one day (even if my brother did tell me I was adopted and convinced me when I found my birth certificate that they change those to make the adopted child not “feel bad”). I have no huge tear filled coming out story, I simply told my parents. I have been with the same man for almost twenty-two years now and our parents have met and get along just fine. It’s Passover with my family and Christmas with his with very little drama. So I know how fortunate I am and I know that I have many people to “lean” on if the case be that I need to do some leaning but what I discovered recently was that even with all these people in my corner, there are times sometimes you have to look in the mirror and support yourself – Don’t Get Me Started!

Once again I defer to musical theatre writers who tend to write things that I feel just a bit better than me. In the musical Goodbye Girl (lyrics by David Zippel) the main character sings, “How can I win if I’m not on my side?” While this may seem as though it’s a sentiment we should all, all ready know (and maybe we do somewhere in our subconscious) there are many times when I forget this sentiment and I wish I didn’t.

I don’t know about all of the visualization techniques people talk about or even putting post-its about my mirror so that every morning I see, “Gosh you’re handsome today!” but I think that sometimes I look to others for what I should be finding inside myself. I want to see myself in someone else’s eyes because somehow that seems to give me more validity but the truth of the matter is that if you only look at yourself in the reflection of someone else’s eyes then you’re also giving everyone in your life a lot more power than they deserve or want really. It’s almost expecting too much of people and too little of you.

I admit that I have about as much right to give people psychological help as Dolly Parton in the movie, Straight Talk (am I the only one who can’t help but watch this when it’s on)? But I think my words will ring true for some people reading this somewhere out there in the Internetosphere. It’s sometimes stating the obvious that rings a bell in my head and since I have a blog I occasionally share my bell ringing with those who read me. “And if I were a bell, I’d go ding, dong, ding, dong, ding” (name that musical).

Recently I put myself in the running for the Oprah get your OWN show completion online. You need to submit a video (and if you’re reading this before July 3, 2010 – go vote - http://myown.oprah.com/audition/index.html?request=video_details&response_id=977&promo_id=1) and a lot of the people in my life told me how great they all thought it was and they even clicked a few times and voted. But behind those faces I saw what they were thinking, “There are six gazillion people trying for this thing Scott, what makes you think you’ll get chosen?” I’ll admit that there was a part of me at one point that saw some of the other entrants with six million votes and/or views and I thought I was out of my mind in the first place for throwing my stylish hat into the ring. But then it came to me, “Why the hell not? Why the hell not me?” I don’t know that I’ll be chosen, I don’t know that the casting people will even watch my video but as I watched and voted for myself yesterday I realized that whether or not the gang looking at this audition video thinks I’m “worthy” I all ready know that I am. I came up with a great concept for a show that I know I can bring my unique talents and humor to creating an entertaining and informative show. I’ve won all ready because although it was looking at my video online, I was looking into the mirror of who I am and what I’m capable of becoming. Sometimes you have to look in the mirror and support yourself – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Am I The Only Forty-Something Year Old Who Does NOT Want To Run A Marathon? - Don’t Get Me Started!

I never liked to run. I was always the short skinny kid in the back of the pack with the fat kids when it came to running around the track in grade school. I used to sing, tell jokes, do whatever it took to get my mind off the fact that I was supposed to be running laps. And something good came from it (I actually had my grade school “coach” cut me a deal that if I stop showing up to his class and stayed out of trouble for that period each day that he would give me an “A” for the year – deal done) I’m amazed at all the friends I have who seem to find a fondness for running later in their life. Am I the only forty-something year old who does NOT want to run a marathon? – Don’t Get Me Started!

I remember when it all started more than a few years ago. I had a co-worker my age who decided that she was going to run for an AIDs charity. She had a website and you could log on each day to hear about her throwing up, her toenails turning black and falling off, her hitting her “wall” and then having her endolphins (yes, I know, was trying to be witty, kids) kick in and so on. I donated money to her cause, she ran the marathon and while she never ran again, she has the marathon notch of honor on her belt. Through the years there was the marathon someone else ran for breast cancer and most recently a marathon for guess what, just a marathon’s sake that a pal of mine ran, go figure. But through it all, even when I started back at the gym a few years ago I never understood the fascination for running and still don’t.

Most of my pals tell me about the sense of accomplishment it gives them, or that they always wanted to do one but never thought they could, blah, blah, blah. And there must be something to it because everyone from Oprah to people who no one ever heard about it all line up across the country several times a year to run like crazy with the other mostly forty-something year olds. I think it’s all part of the new mid-life “review” (as I call it) where you feel as though your body has started to sag and you can no longer do everything you once did physically (without your body being incredibly sore the next day) so you want to prove to yourself and the world that you can still run like the moron you were at fourteen. So good for all of you on your accomplishment.

But running a marathon isn’t going to make you younger or get out of this life thing alive, kids. I think it’s great that you have no more toenails, drank Gatorade from a cup that was handed to you as you careened by a volunteer at seven miles an hour and that you can feel good about yourself. But if you think it makes you or your breasts (insert pecs for men or ass for either sex) look like they did when you were a teen, you’re mistaken. Yes, good for you that you ticked off something else on your “bucket list” we’re all sufficiently impressed.

I remember recently being at the gym and getting on the treadmill. After walking for the “warm-up” I decided that perhaps I would try this running thing that everyone is so crazy about. I imagined me shopping for my marathon outfit and a number on my chest (that didn’t involve an orange jumpsuit from prison) as I jogged along. I thought I was doing great. I looked around at the people just walking on the treadmills, “Suckers” I thought to myself as I kept my jaunty pace trying to ignore Fox News on the televisions. I saw the serious runners who were so gaunt they looked as though they had just come from the concentration camps to the gym. I could envision myself getting “gay thin” at last! I would be the envy of everyone as I exclaimed, “I don’t get it, my pants just all seem to fall off of me, I don’t know why they don’t make more 28 inch waist pants anymore” as I batted my eyes in mock surprise.  Then it started, my left knee started to have a small pain in it. Could it be from the jogging or just that old dance injury? I kept my pace, jogging through the pain – after all, doesn’t everyone say, “No pain, no gain?” I kept my mind off the knee pain by thinking of people doing an intervention because they were afraid I was getting too thin. As I pumped my arms as I ran I felt tightness in the left arm. Was it a heart attack as any Jew thinks of first or was it simply that I hadn’t held my arms in this position in so long that it was like when you carried a bunch of books in high school for a long time and then set them down and felt as though you would never be able to straighten your arms again? Why didn’t the sweat in the crook of my elbow act like some oil for this Tin Man? I decided to take it down a few notches, then I decided it was better to just go ahead and walk for a minute before I started jogging again, after all, it had been years since I’d run and I needed to work up to it, right? When I looked down to slow the treadmill I was amazed at what I saw, I had been running or jogging or whatever the hell you want to call it for exactly a minute and a half! That’s right, all of those thoughts, dreams, pains and eventual submission to walking happened in under two minutes.

I looked at the people just walking and as I held tightly onto the railing acting as if I was getting my heart rate and not desperately holding on for support. I made faces to the other walkers that said, “Look at those morons running? Do you get it cause I don’t! We’re the sane ones people! Good for us!” And as I looked around at the “walkers” it was clear to me that once again I was in the back of the pack with the fat kids, just walking when the fit kids were running. And somehow it didn’t matter anymore. I didn’t care that I was in the back of the pack, I didn’t care that there were people killing themselves to get to “pace” to run a marathon. I realized that it was okay to not like running, to not feel as though I had to run a marathon or not have any interest in it at all. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder, “Am I the only forty-something year old who does NOT want to run a marathon?” – Don’t Get Me Started!

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The Las Vegas Fremont Street Experience Is More Than Some Projected Light Shows – Don’t Get Me Started!

A few years after moving to Vegas there was an article in the paper that listed several signs to let you know if you were a “local” or not. One of those was “It’s a Saturday night, you’re in the city of entertainment yet you have nothing to do.” I’m not sure if it’s because most of us locals tend to avoid the Strip unless visitors are in town or what but it’s so true. So on this past Saturday my guy and I decided to do something that we haven’t done in a long time, we decided to go downtown to the original Strip which has now been covered by a canopy where they project music/video/light shows that go down the length of the old Fremont Street on the hour, there are kiosks selling everything imaginable, live performers on several of the stages and people, dear God, the people. The Las Vegas Fremont Street Experience is more than some projected light shows – Don’t Get Me Started!

If you come to Vegas and only stay on the Strip and don’t visit Fremont Street, I think you’re missing out. I think you’re missing out on seeing what Vegas was at one time and getting to see that yes, Vegas for all its glitz and glamour is just a little seedy and I mean that in the best possible way. Sure over the past eleven years we’ve lived here we’ve seen how they transformed the downtown area with the light show, cool bars and everything else they’ve done to clean up the place but there’s still a little low life to it and I like it. I mean, you’re more likely to see people walking around sipping their straw from a clear plastic football filled with beer on Fremont Street than you are to see that on the Strip where they sip from their Coronas thinking they look “cool” because they’re on the street and drinking beer and still walking. Fremont Street doesn’t have that pretentious nature about it…at all. You’re more likely to see a group of girls from Ohio with their sequined “Vegas” dresses on that never see the light of day back home, walking around with their little girl sequined tiaras on, celebrating one of them getting married as they walk Fremont Street with one strap off their shoulder, holding their shoes in one hand and holding a yard long drink swinging from around their neck on a strap in the other. Fabulous.

You see the families out in droves, shopping at the kiosks for their name on a piece of rice or a painting that someone does from layering different colors of spray paint on a board and then “cutting” into it to make some amazing piece of art that you would never know was done by this technique. There are the t-shirt wearers to the suit and tie set, all walking on the same street at the same time. I’m a people watcher by nature so just watching these people all walk along is a show in of itself. This past Saturday as we walked the length of the street we saw something coming toward us that you rarely get to see anywhere else in the world. There was a girl coming toward us wearing the biggest ball gown styled wedding gown you can imagine. She was not a tall girl but quite the round girl so the thin straps on the dress had their work cut out for them. She had both hands holding up the skirt as she walked down the street I supposed to not get it dirty (though how it would not get dirty walking that street with all the humanity is beyond me). The amazing thing was that here she was in her finery complete with the rhinestone tiara and yet no wedding party or even groom in sight. She was sweating to death as it was over eighty degrees even at midnight and she had a look on her face that was hard to read. I couldn’t tell if she was upset or just shvitzing (Yiddish word for sweating). The crowd parted for her as she walked through and though I have no idea where she came from or where she ended up, she gave me a chuckle and I appreciated her for that!

I know that everyone wants you to think of Vegas as high rise, five star restaurants, unparalleled performers and all that and it is all that but it’s also still (at least part of it) a small street where gambling establishments started and still thrive. Where a penny bet isn’t looked down on and where people still think they can be a millionaire for that penny if they put it in the right slot machine. So while I get that some may look down their nose at the downtown area of Las Vegas, some of us, prefer it to the Strip where people think they’re important or VIPs by paying thousands of dollars to get a table at a club. If you really want to take a walk on the wild side while you’re in Vegas, walk down what used to be the Strip, Fremont Street.  The Las Vegas Fremont Street Experience is more than some projected light shows – Don’t Get Me Started!

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