This came to me (not on a midnight clear) a couple years ago on Christmas Eve. Sometimes I write and it just all comes straight out to the keyboard (as in this case).

To date it's one of my favorite things I've ever written and my dream is one day to meet a talented graphic artist who can make it into an illustrated book for me!

I hope you enjoy it as much as I still do - like it, comment on it, share it and know someday I'll sign a copy of the book for you!

I honestly don’t know how these ideas come to me…but I'm so glad that they do!


The Tale of Schlomo, The Jewish Elf
While there are so many holiday stories, here’s one you may not have heard.

So you may know the 3 wise men were named Balthasar, Melchior and Gaspar but what you may not know is that Balthasar and Melchior were lovers/spouses/partners/whatever the hell you called it back then. In fact, they had been together a long time (one black and the other Jewish - sound familiar?).

Anyway, Balthasar saw the light in the sky and exclaimed, “Melchior, put down the menorah, there’s a big light in the sky and I think we should go check it out.” Melchior, who had been polishing for hours said, “Oy, what did you say? I don’t even listen to you anymore. What? A light? Okay, it’s the only way you take me out of the shtetl anymore, we’ll go. We should call Gasp, he just got out of a ten minute relationship with a yutz that had the face of a camel and could use a getaway.” (Gaspar was known as “Gasp” as whenever you told him any good gossip, he would gasp and grab the imaginary pearls around his neck. He was the friend that could never keep a boyfriend or a camel so Balthasar and Melchior always took him along, like their “plus one.”) “Tell Gasp it’s a mirror ball in the sky and that we think Donna Summer is playing, that’ll get him over here faster.” said Balthasar.

As they started to leave, Melchior said, “Oy, let’s not be schmucks, quick grab something we can take to the people under the light, I hear it’s a newborn king.” Balthasar looked around and said, “I dunno what to take, maybe I’ll take that extra gold, after all, he IS a king.” Melchior said, “Then I’m taking that myrrh your mother gave me for our anniversary last year. Like I didn’t get her hint that it’s an embalming oil.” Melchior said to Gasp, “What are you taking?” Gasp clutched his pearls and said, “I’m taking poppers, I mean frankincense, I hear it’s a damn barn there and since Donna Summer is playing there, it should smell nicer, no?” They started for the door when Melchior screamed, “Jesus, what are we doing, we can’t go with these gifts like this, wait, better yet, I’ll wrap them.” And Balthasar got a big smile on his face and said, “My Schlomo, the Jewish elf!”

For 29 years I’ve been Schlomo the Jewish elf, wrapping Christmas gifts for my lover/spouse/partner/whatever the hell you call it nowadays’ family on Christmas Eve. I love every minute of it and him. So to all those Schlomos out there like me, wrapping like me tonight, keep wrapping! After all, what would our Balthasars do without us, right? Of course, right. Back to work!

Please don’t say I’ve “passed on” as I never passed on anything that I thought would be fun or right for me. I will have died. It’s okay to say, “Well, Scott’s dead.”

Originally I thought I might like a big funeral. First, I would insist on certain people being kept out. You know, the ones that were looking for forgiveness a little too late. Like a good nightclub, if you weren’t on the list you wouldn’t get in. (Even if you tried to tip the bouncer, Vicky Saunders, who has already volunteered for this position). I thought of choreographing the whole event ahead of time. March of the Siamese Children from King and I would play as everyone came down the center aisle in the funeral home (since I got this idea, whenever I hear this song, I think of everyone of consequence in my life smirking and rolling their eyes as they’re walking to take their seats). I would have someone sing, “For Good” from Wicked and would have handwritten notes I’ve written ahead of time (obviously) to everyone that were printed on the front, “I’ll be with you, like a handprint on your heart.” I’m always disappointed more people don’t send notes anymore.

But the more people that die around me, the more I begin to re-think what my send off might entail. I’ve decided to be cremated (shhh, don’t tell my Jewish relatives) after donating whatever organs are useful to someone else, so really, seems silly to have a bunch of people looking at an urn so I started thinking that there shouldn’t be an actual funeral. Maybe everyone should just do “independent study.” As they say to you before you audition, “In your own time.” So whenever and whatever you feel like doing, do it. Yup, independent study seems best to me. Just do whatever you want to do to remember me. I’ll be dead and there’s nothing I’ve done in my life that hasn’t crossed the line of good taste more than once or twice so whether you decide to burn candles and incense in reflection or hire a prostitute in my memory, it’s all up to you and thank you in advance.

Now the next piece we need to cover is when you’re talking to one another after my death. I’ve made a lot of shit up in my life and my best friends are good liars too so feel free to “have at it” and make up whatever you want. “There was this time we were on the Matterhorn in Disneyland with Scott and he stood up and mooned the Abominable Snowman.” If it makes you or the person you’re talking to laugh, then even if I didn’t do it, I would probably have liked to do it or lied about doing it myself so go for it. Of course mention my great style, tiny waistline, hair, writing and other things but here’s what NOT to do. Please don’t say I’m dancing or putting on a show with everyone else who died before me. I will not be dancing with them because I won’t have a body (see getting cremated a couple paragraphs up). And when you hear a song that makes you think of me or something else that makes you think of me, then just enjoy that moment without posting or tweeting that you know I was with you. Most likely I’ll be doing much more important things than altering the playlist on a radio station after my death. Frankly, I’ll be running the God Damned place, wherever I end up. (Even if it’s just running my ashes in the urn, I’ll be like I Dream of Jeannie in the bottle. Oooh, note to self, get Jeannie bottle instead of urn or Aladdin lamp for ashes.)

For so many years I’ve been told I’m going to hell because I haven’t taken Jesus as my savior, because I’m Jewish, because I’m gay, because I’m a pain the ass, the list goes on and on. So should I end up in hell (although to be clear, I’ve always believed there is no greater hell than the one we make up in our own minds while we are here on earth) I’m going to make sure I get there first so that when my friends get there they’ll have to live with my color scheme and set up. Here’s a shocking glimpse, don’t expect throw pillows, can’t stand ‘em.

There’s truly so much to think about as you get older and death gets closer. Sure, I could get hit by a bus tomorrow but I don’t really live in a city where I walk around so probably not happening that way. Here’s hoping however it happens, it’s quick. I do NOT want to linger. I’ve always said I would not be one of the people living under the ground for ten years on cans of tuna if there’s a nuclear holocaust. I want to be the person saying, “What’s that lig…” and dead before I finish my sentence.


Yup, I feel as though I’ve got this death thing covered. It’ll all be organized ahead of time so no one has to go to the trouble of wondering what I would like (and so they don’t fuck it up). And should you miss me after I’m gone or have some piece of juicy gossip you want to tell me, just call my number and tell or leave a voicemail for whoever has my phone number after I die. I know they’ll appreciate (and so will I).

I did one of the most adult things you can do last night so why do I feel like a little boy with a broken heart?

We had seen the two cats in the neighborhood for weeks. Due to it being Vegas and transient, it’s amazing but there are many people who leave their animals behind (even when they move across town). These assholes should be killed but that’s for another day’s blog. Anyway, it was a summer evening and our air conditioner was on the fritz so we had the front door open to the condo. Michael said, “Hunney, look over there.” As I looked into the kitchen I saw this little black and white ball of fur with scottish fold ears and half a Hitler mustache looking back at me. She had stopped before hitting the kitchen as if to say, “Someone coming over here to make me something?” We had seen her and a larger cat that looked just like her around the neighborhood but here she was IN the condo. She did not leave hungry, nor had it been her first time here, Michael would tell me later. The larger cat spent more time trying to figure out if we could be trusted. Due to their size difference, I assumed the big cat was the Mom and the little one was the runt of the litter that she had somehow saved from the Vegas jungle. After much coaching, the larger cat came into the house too and we discovered it was a boy. They have the same markings on their nose so they’re definitely related and on that fateful night back in the early 2000s when they both had entered our home, the deal was made.

Oh sure, at first Michael said, “Let’s give them one week of living in luxury and then we’ll find a no-kill shelter where they can be adopted.” First of all, I was naive (having only owned one pet previously) and thought this made sense and could happen that way. That was until I could see them sleeping with their paws around one another, see him wait for her to eat before he ate (no doubt how he protected her when they were on their own) and when he laid his chest on mine, whiskers brushing my face as we watched television together, I was hooked.

I wanted to name them, “Lockwood and Lamont” for the first show we had done together, Singin’ In The Rain. Michael hated those names. Finally we settled on Fiyero and Elphaba from the musical Wicked we’d just seen in New York. They were both about four minutes away from being ferrel with anyone but us and much like us had their own quirks. Fiyero had to finish every conversation and at times, just loved hearing himself talk so much that he would go into the bathtub to hear his voice reverberate. Elphaba was quiet, I swear if we ever got her tested, she’d be “on the spectrum” as they say but we love them.

They remained indoor/outdoor cats and Fiyero loved to “can it” as Michael put it. He would bring home half eaten pork chops from garbage cans along with bites from other cats (he was one of those bullies, where his mouth would write a check his ass couldn’t cash, but could be bitten and cause a $500 vet bill). He loved to get dirty, hated to be bathed (though I secretly think he did it on purpose sometimes when he wasn’t getting enough attention). Yes, he was my penance for my childhood. Never shutting his mouth, always needing attention and with me every minute of the day. He had to be in the bathroom with me and at night, he stood guard. Literally, he would sit beside my head checking my breath all night and should I make the slightest indication I might be awake, he would meow until I was fully awake to pet and love on him. Made for some creepy times when I would wake up with a start to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and find myself face to whiskers with him. But how I love him.

So when he started throwing up on a more regular basis (again, a lot like me, I spent a lot of my childhood throwing up too) it was finally time for a vet visit. It’s amazing how much I learned from my parents without knowing it. When I was a child, throwing up, it was my father whose hand was always on my back making circular motions, talking me through it, calming me and letting me know he was there with and for me. When Fiyero began throwing up I would hear the other worldly, “I’m about to throw up here” yowl he was making at 1am, I would jump up, get him off the bed and onto the floor (so I didn’t have to change soiled bedding) and there I would be, right next to him making circular motions on his back telling him it would be okay. I don’t know if it helped him, I hope it did because having my Dad there always helped me.

The $600 diagnosis was kidney failure. And although it was just x-rays, blood work, a scan and urine test, by the time I got him home he wasn’t our Fiyero anymore. So strange, for weeks it was him as him and then once a night he’d “throw up a river” and go back to being himself but somehow once the vet put a name to it, that was “all she wrote” as my father would say. We tried some medicine but after two days of no drinking or eating, the fear became he would have one of those horrible deaths by dehydration so you become a grown up, you do the right thing, you hold him and take him in and let them quietly, “put him down.”

They took us to a room at the vet and then we waited..and waited. Then I had to pull a little Shirley MacLaine and go to the front desk. “We’ve been waiting for 20 minutes here, this is not easy and you’re really not helping us here.” Girl Assistant, “They haven’t brought your cat in?” Me, “I’ve got no cat, no doctor, NOTHING so would you please get someone on it? NOW?!?” She scurried away, they brought him in with the catheters in his forearms and then the doctor finally came in talking about a cardiac arrest in the other room he was dealing with and apologizing. Down to business. Fiyero was laying there looking from Michael to me and back again. The doctor explained the 3 shots in the series and how he would react to each one, asking us to let him know how much time we wanted before he proceeded. Michael was a mess, his tears and snot landing in Fiyero’s fur. My hand on Michael’s back making circular motions, I looked at the doctor and said, “Go, do it. Do it now.”  One shot, just water to ensure they could get everything in his system. Second shot, like a Xanax but as soon as it went in Fiyero stood up, tried to change position and then went back to his original laying position, his nose wetter than it had been in days, his eyes just looking forward, not focusing on Michael or me, a manufactured calm. Third shot, the lethal dose. Fiyero still staring ahead as the doctor used his stethoscope to tell us he was gone and to take as much time as we needed. The vet wiped his own tears away, shook our hands and then there we were, just the three of us but really only two, for one had already left the building. Michael kept trying to close Fiyero’s eyes with no success. I thought I saw an ear twitch. We both lost it, got it back and lost it again, held him, held each other and didn’t really want to leave that room.

Seeing him laying there naked (we left his collar at home) on the steel table I couldn’t help but think we’ll all end here some day. I hope I look so regal (and thin) laid out as Fiyero, I hope I have the people who love me most there to comfort one another that I’m no longer there. I cried like a little kid last night, those quick, short, intakes of air that really does no good as the tears and snot pour. I haven’t cried like that in years. I haven’t been reminded in years that I’m still the kid I always was and although I do a lot of grown up things, this is one that is best left for the child in me. To be heartbroken, unable to catch my breath or comprehend why (even though the adult in me understands) why I had to be an adult and let go of my best friend last night.


Warning: If even one motherfucker talks about the “rainbow bridge” for pets in comments I’ll kick the shit out of you until you’re visiting the God Damned made up rainbow bridge.

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