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

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

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

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

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

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

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Facebook Philosophers – Don’t Get Me Started!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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But Sometimes Facebook Is A Good Thing – Don’t Get Me Started!

For the most part, ever since I joined Facebook I’ve been annoyed with it. As I wrote when I first joined, it seemed as though everyone I thought that I had gotten rid of in my life who I really didn’t ever want to chat with again had found me on Facebook.  (http://hubpages.com/hub/Facebook-Is-Bringing-Everyone-I-Got-Rid-Of-Back-Into-My-Life) Here I’d spent years getting rid of most of them and then all of sudden there they were in my inbox with their aged faces and their wanting to request my friendship all over again. I wondered why none of the “good” people who had fallen out of my life over the years were appearing in my inbox and then some did, and then they told two friends and so on and so on. I don’t know why Facebook has to have all of the crap that it does, Farmville, Mafia Wars, etc. I just know that from what I can see everyone is busy at these things instead of living their damn life. But sometimes Facebook is a good thing – Don’t Get Me Started!

If you’re reading this from a link on my “wall” then I want you to know that if you’re one of those people who are looking for an unmarked gun in Mafia Wars or someone to help you plow the back forty in Farmville, I will never assist you or add these things to my Facebook page. I think they’re stupid and the people who seem to have so much time to do these games just sort of make me think that perhaps although we’re one of the societies that spend more time at work, I suspect that we’re not really working all those hours as much as we’re looking to see if our new cow just had a calf. My point is that I find these things pointless however I’m sure those people who are heavily farmed would disagree and so be it.

That said, there are times when I log on and someone from my deep past (not to be confused with the deep south) has found me and while it’s usually just an email or two back and forth, I’m delighted to reconnect with them (sort of) in the world of not so social networking and to hear that they have seven kids and are married to a plumber. It does give you a sense of keeping in touch without really having to keep in touch so I get why it works for so many people. Recently I sent a friend request to someone I haven’t seen in thirty-five years. I remember at the time he was like a God to me, a few years my senior and who I wanted to be when I grew up. As I sent the friend request I felt sort of strange. Here I was an adult in his forties and yet I felt like I did at ten years old. Would he “accept” me as a friend? Would he accept me and then put me in a category that was completely censored from seeing anything on his wall (as I’ve learned to do with many “friends” that I have accepted)? While I didn’t think about it constantly, I did think about it from time to time and wonder if I had made the right decision to send the friend request in the first place. A week went by before I got the notice that he had accepted me as a friend. No personal message, just an acceptance of my friendship and I was delighted. What was it that turned me into that kid again I don’t know, I only know that I realized that when most people talk about how much they change over the years based on their life experiences I realized that I had not changed at all. Instead I was still that ten year old looking at this sixteen year old and enraptured to be in his presence (if only by a small postage stamp of a photo of what he looked like today).

Maybe that’s the real thing about Facebook that makes it so popular, it makes us all kids again, waiting for one another’s approval but knowing as adults how painful a rejection can be from anyone and everyone giving us an opportunity to make amends by forgiving and accepting a friend request or feeling powerful by not accepting one, making them pay for whatever it is we think they’ve done and we are still holding a grudge about. I think even though we may censor people out on Facebook (or leave them in our inbox forever – or what a friend of mine calls “Facebook purgatory” as you’re not really in the heaven of being accepted or the hell of being rejected) we still let them in to a certain extent by accepting their friend request in the first place.

So to those who constantly annoy me asking me to join causes, help them find their pig in Farmville or post photos of me I’d rather not have posted, thanks for nothing but to those who accept my friendship or renew it by accepting my friendship via Facebook, thank you. I don’t think I’ll ever fully feel comfortable in the world of Facebook but sometimes Facebook is a good thing – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Don’t Ask…Period! – Don’t Get Me Started!

As the military bigwigs once again meet to try and figure out how to repeal the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” military policy to get rid of gays who will admit or get caught being gay I can’t help but think that really, it’s no one’s business who is gay and who isn’t. If you’re someone like me who doesn’t mind telling the world that you’re gay then great and if you’re someone who doesn’t want to tell the world good for you too. There’s no right or wrong in these two scenarios but what gets me is what a big deal the military (mostly fueled by the people who claim to talk and walk so often with Jesus) are making over the repeal of this stupid law. Don’t ask…period! – Don’t Get Me Started!

Is it anyone’s business who you have sex with as long as you’re two consenting adults? I think not. So why should that be a prerequisite for serving in the military? Please don’t tell me that this is going to become like credit ratings which need to be checked now for you to open a bank account or decide how much you’ll pay on car insurance (which has never made sense to me by the way). Honestly, there are lots of questions I ponder in my daily life that I think are better not answered.

I don’t want to know about my parents or most of my friend’s sex lives. I just don’t ask. I don’t really want to know what they put in fast food French fries that makes me love them so or whether or not the person serving them has just picked their nose before scooping mine out so I just don’t ask. There are millions of things that I simply don’t ask because I’m either afraid of the answer or just feel as though it’s none of my business so someone please explain to me why who you’re sleeping with has become a question that needs to be answered by those serving our country? We don’t ask when the Congress are boinking their Senate pages left and right. We don’t ask how much sex all of the straight politicians are having so why is everyone so concerned about us gays and how much sex we’re having? Jealous much, straightees?

As they have their congressional hearings and ask that the lawmakers repeal the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy “cautiously” I have a better plan that could save the country millions. Just change “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” to “Don’t Ask” if someone wants to serve this country and are an able bodied person, they’re in. Simple, right? No need for everyone to wonder where everyone will shower or if the gays will redecorate the barracks, let’s be realistic. The military has policies that are strictly enforced when it comes to conduct and I hardly think that allowing gays to serve is going to cause orgy after orgy in the tents (much to the chagrin of many a gay man’s fantasies) and seems to me with sex scandals such as Tailhook and the rest it was the straights who were something out of Military Gone Wild and what happened to them? They were tried and prosecuted, done.

What gets me is that everyone seems to be worried about the gays serving “openly” when really the only thing that should be open is their eyes to the fact that there are many a gay out there who feel as though what they do sexually is only their business. So while the religious right would have the country believe that allowing gays to serve will make the experience something akin to gay Mardi Gras, I suspect that nothing negative will happen. I also suspect that there are so many serving right now under the radar that when the time comes that they can tell everyone most of them will decide not to for the simple reason that I stated above. As much as the media and Christian right would love to make you think we gays are all about boas and glittery parades, on the whole, most are just what I call “your average garden variety gays” who live normal lives, contributing to their communities and trying to make ends meet. So when this stupid law gets repealed I don’t think that the heavens will open and swallow America whole nor do I think that the gay troops will be swallowing anything different than their straight counterparts (at least in the chow line) and outside of the chow line, whose business is it anyway?

What we have to understand is that just because America is on a 24 hour news cycle and thinks that because almost everyone wants to be on reality television either getting their life back together on Intervention or Dr. Phil or becoming a pseudo-celebrity on Jersey Shore, the truth is there are a lot of people who will never get their fifteen minutes of fame and they’re okay with it. There are a lot of people who feel as though their business is their business and they don’t feel the need to share everything with everyone. People write into me all the time and think that I’m the character I’ve designed for this website but I can tell you that while there are many facets of me that I allow you access to through my writing, for the most part this is a character that I’ve created to entertain you and make me famous. So what you do in your bedroom I don’t want to know about and what I do in my bedroom you’ll never know about because I’m not interested in “leaking” a sex tape anytime soon. And what military personnel do between the sheets simply shouldn’t be a concern of ours. Don’t ask…period! – Don’t Get Me Started!

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I’m With Oprah On The No Phone Zone When Driving – Don’t Get Me Started!

I’m not one of those people who think that Oprah can and will save the world. I don’t care if she’s gotten fat or having trouble staying in shape and I certainly don’t care about that no talent leech of a friend, Gayle King but on one thing (at least) I’m with Oprah big time. I’m with Oprah on the No Phone Zone when driving – Don’t Get Me Started!

I used to be one of the worst people in the world about being on my cell phone when driving. I used to drive around in cities I didn’t know on the cell phone thinking that the business deal I was doing at the moment would surely crash and burn if I wasn’t on the phone with someone at every point of my day. I was addicted. Then when the Blackberry came out, forget about it. I could text, email and talk all at the same time. My spouse has always been against the whole cell phone constant access thing and he refused to let me be on the phone when I’m in the car with him a long time ago. He was convinced that the world would not stop spinning on its axis if I didn’t answer my phone. For the longest time I resisted, assuring him that now with the Bluetooth headset that I could easily keep my hands at 9 and 3 on the steering wheel (do they even still teach the steering wheel as a clock?) and talk away. But I was wrong. On more than one occasion I found myself drifting from one lane to the next while stupidly thinking I was completely in control of the situation. It reminds me of a party we threw in my third grade class. I was in charge of the decorations and everything else (no surprise I suppose) so there I was riding my ten speed bike to school with no hands on the handlebars because in my hands I was carrying the piñata that I had stuffed with a girl named Roxanne the day before (she thought she was my girlfriend but I thought of her more as my assistant) and two glass liters of Coke (back when they made them in glass, not plastic). As the bike was falling, it seemed like slow motion as I held the piñata up so as to not harm a tissue paper hair on the donkey’s head. Crash went the glass liters of Coke and as I lay there in the gutter watching the Coke spill out and past me I couldn’t help but feel like Janet Leigh in Psycho. I should have learned back then that when you’re driving (even just on a bike) it’s best to stay focused at the task at hand.

So after Oprah made her big show about how we’re all driving drunk basically when driving and texting and talking I decided to put the phone away (for the most part). I talk to one friend on the phone on my way into the office in the morning but as she is someone who talks “at” you and you never get a word in edgewise I don’t see this as really talking and driving, I’m just listening and driving as if the radio was on and telling me the intimate details of its life. Now that I’m phone free I’ve become worse than a smoker who stops smoking. I’m amazed at the morons out there who are still texting away while driving. Don’t they know Queen Oprah has spoken? And can someone please explain to me why the assholes who are texting and driving think that the right hand lane is for them? Have you noticed how the texters are always driving really slowly in the right hand lane as if like an express lane, this is some sort of special lane for people who are multi-tasking? Guess what dickhead, it’s still a lane that other people are driving (and turning in) so get the fuck off your phone and start paying attention to your shitty driving.

My guy is always saying that if anyone should ever hit him or anyone he loves (I usually assume that after twenty-one years I fall into this category) that the person who hits us better not be on a phone. He’s all ready thought it out enough to say that he will subpoena the driver’s phone records and kill them (but not necessarily in that order). Bottom line here is that it really isn’t safe to be doing two people or things at once, something always suffers. So though I’m not usually a go-alonger, this time, Oprah, I’m with you. I’m with Oprah on the No Phone Zone when driving – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Sometimes I Just Can’t Help Myself And Have To Answer Some Hate Mail! – Don’t Get Me Started!

I have tried to fly above (as Kandi sang on Housewives of Atlanta) but sometimes I find it harder than other times. And sometimes, I just feel like fucking with these fuckheads a little more. I know I should be a better person than this but I know I’m not and as I’ve often said, I know they’re sitting there getting their unemployment checks, tithing to their church and typing their misspelled hatred with their Cheetoh stained fingers while their six cats lay at their feet. Sometimes I just can’t help myself and have to answer some hate mail! – Don’t Get Me Started!

This is the most recent one that made me even write this blog entry. I can’t even remember when I wrote this blog but it was over a year ago and while I appreciate that some of my “oldies but goodies” are still being read, I think I could have done without Don reading me.

To read the blog, “I Hope Daryl Hall and John Oates Are Gay” click here http://hubpages.com/hub/I-Hope-Daryl-Hall-And-John-Oates-Are-Gay If you scroll down to the end of it you’ll see Don’s comments but here they are for your reading pleasure. Please be aware that I was dumb enough to think that he was complimenting me for the first three or so words until I re-read the comments and realized that he was agreeing with a guy who said I had a sick mind and needed to get to know God.

Here was my response to Don: Don, I don't think you feel evil just around gay people, I think you're evil around anyone and everyone. I suggest you have a long talk with a therapist about your issues. As for me, although I've always teased everyone I know that I intend to get to hell first so that my friends have to deal with color scheme for all of eternity I firmly believe that people who think like you are the real devils who are creating a hell here on earth for the rest of us who are more concerned with judging people for their human kindness and contributing to society as opposed to those of you who sit on your high horses doing nothing but spewing hate and ignorance. And please don't feel sorry for me, feel sorry for yourself as much as I do you poor stupid son of a bitch.

Here was one of my favorite gay on gay hate mail over a video blog I did about men who wear makeup. Although I only responded once, BigDaddyGregory (see my blog about gay baby names about how we gays can’t leave gay enough alone when it comes to our names – Gregory - http://hubpages.com/hub/Gay_Baby_Names)

Watch the video “Man Make-Up? – Forty-Something Gay, ep 39” - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQ_r-igQG_0

While someone named “Gandy” had me in stitches by their comments and the fact that I’ve heard from other people that I looked like Neil Sedaka…

BigDaddyGregory was having none of it:

Before I could respond he worked himself into a real frenzy and wrote:

Still I held my fingers and didn’t respond until I read this one from him:

And so I typed:

Until he got the last typed word because I couldn’t take anymore and he wrote:

While I could go on and on about the hate mail I’ve received I’ll spare you at this time. The sad part is that unless I get some good hate mail from a blog post I don’t feel as though I’ve done my job. Something for me and my God to work on I suppose. Sometimes I just can’t help myself and have to answer some hate mail! – Don’t Get Me Started!

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I Don’t Think The World Is Ready For Me On 8 Hours Of Sleep! – Don’t Get Me Started!

I didn’t purposely try to make this happen but now that it has I don’t know what to do with myself. I sleep on average anywhere from 5 ½ hours to 6 hours a night, with the rare 7 hour night’s sleep making an appearance so you can imagine my surprise when I actually slept 8 hours last night. As I bounded from bed to shower to car to work I could tell that what was about to befall the world was something that I’m not sure they or myself were equipped to handle. I don’t think the world is ready for me on 8 hours of sleep! – Don’t Get Me Started!

I’ve read all the reports about how important a good night’s sleep is for us. From losing weight to not losing our minds apparently the body needs some down time and unless we give it to it, it rebels against us in every way imaginable. Be that as it may, I still have never been able to sleep longer than six hours on the whole. I went to a sleep clinic once where they hook you up to so many strings that you feel like Pinocchio, “All I want to be is a real boy!” When I awoke after my customary six hours they made me sign a form stating that they didn’t wake me up. So after a night hooked up like an alien on life support in some top secret lab, the diagnosis (which came approximately $1500 later) was that I needed to get more sleep each night. Gee fellas, thanks.

I’ve said it before, I have one of those minds that doesn’t shut off. Even while I’m sleeping I’m troubleshooting the day ahead of me and the one that just passed. I’m making lists of things I want to do, need to do and probably shouldn’t do.  It got so bad that I would be on the elliptical machine at the gym in the morning and I would find myself actually closing my eyes and nodding off. Don’t ask me how I was doing it, I was still pedaling away and my arms moving to and fro and yet I could feel myself falling asleep. The doctor diagnosed it as me not getting enough “restful” sleep due to my over-active (a polite way of saying crazy) mind. So I began the medication mambo, one night a little Ambien, one night a Xanax, one night something homeopathic and another not something just homosexual. I don’t know, for three years I was back and forth with things that put me to sleep but didn’t keep me asleep, things that made me too sleepy during the day, shit, I felt like the God Damned Goldilocks for sleeping pills yet never finding something that was “just right.” So two weeks ago I decided that enough was enough and I got off of everything. I was surprised how much of a habit it had become to go to the medicine cabinet before I went off to bed each night. And while the first week was more than a little tough I was determined to get off the junk before having to sign up for Nobody Rehab (a rehab show for the non-famous folk). Lo and behold, last night I got the golden grail. I actually slept that 8 hours that you read about in medical journals.

Here I was, convinced I would spend the rest of my life being one of those old people who never sleep (mostly because they’re afraid if they go to sleep they won’t ever wake up). No longer will I be destined to be the 2am – 6am greeter at Wal-Mart. Could it be that I might just possibly be normal? Could it be that I really was a real boy? And what will the world do now that I’m not yelling in my car with the windows rolled up, that I no longer need four shots of coffee for someone to talk to me or that I no longer have a punch card at the pharmacy trying to get enough medications punched so that I can get one free? It may not last longer than this day but I’m frightened for all of us because the way I feel right now, life is good, clear and dare I say it? I’M HAPPY! No good can come from this. I don’t think the world is ready for me on 8 hours of sleep! – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Why Can’t They Show One Event From Start To Finish At The Olympics? – Don’t Get Me Started!

I know why the network doesn’t want to show one event from start to finish in the Olympic coverage but it makes me absolutely crazy. I get that by the time I’m watching the event the event happened hours before but please allow me a little bit of feeling as though I’m watching it in real time by showing me the same event the people who bought their tickets for the event are seeing. I hardly think that after the Chinese short figure skating program that the audience there was rushing to get out to the mogul ski event and yet there I was in my family room being transported when I didn’t want to be. Why can’t they show one event from start to finish at the Olympics? – Don’t Get Me Started!

I know that they think that everyone in the American television audience has the attention span of a gnat but I assure you that I can get through fourteen couples skating and then hang around for the mogul skiing event (and what the hell is a mogul ski event anyway by the way). I get that they want to tease us by showing one pair skate and then come back to the rest of the skaters in an hour or two so as to not hurt the lesser events or events that we may not care about feelings but more importantly to get more sponsors to buy more commercials but come on people, don’t you get that you’re killing the momentum of the event itself? I know to some of you right now you think I’m going on and on because it’s the figure skaters which some think as a stereotypically gay dominated event but I assure you that it could have been any one of several skating events I’d be talking about and I’d still be upset. (What can I say, I’m not all that ashamed to be a gay stereotype.)

A friend of mine years ago said that we have Sesame Street to blame for the fact that we don’t have any attention span anymore. If you think about it she was kind of right. Sesame Street was the first show to bring information to us faster and faster. There were flashy images for five seconds as the guy stood atop the stairs proclaiming, “Six chocolate sundaes!” before he fell to the doom of the sundaes and possibly his back and then it was onto the ladybug picnic where they all sat around telling knock-knock jokes for the next five seconds and then onto the actual Sesame Street to hear Oscar complaining about something. The information kept coming faster and faster until now I sit in front of my computer and if it doesn’t get out to the Internet and find what I Googled in less than two seconds I want to throw the thing out of the window. That said there are some things that I would like to see in their entirety, the way that they were meant to be seen and not edited by the video producers at MTV.

I like being able to see an event from start to finish and then see the scores. I don’t need the instant replay, the insipid commentary or the new fangled slow-motion 360, 3-D lifelike filming when the event has enough drama all on its own. The whole thing has been overproduced. Perhaps that’s why so many athletes feel the need to get on steroids or anything they can get their hands on to make them bigger, faster and better than the next person because we’ve over-produced the events and they have to over-produce themselves just to be seen over the green screens. Look, we all know that the film industry could produce the entire Olympics like Avatar and it could win awards but I’d much rather see how people who work so hard for years finally make it to the top of their game and compete against others who have done the same without all the crap getting in the way. When I see someone in a show on Broadway, I don’t need a slow motion replay on a scene that was amazing, I use my mind to remember it but what sporting events and especially the Olympics producers forget is that our minds are more powerful than they think they are, we can watch, remember and enjoy all at the same time. Sure, show the amazing things that happened a second or third time but how can I sit on my sofa and judge the athletes if I don’t see them in the order the judges are seeing them? That’s what made me feel a part of the Olympics when I was young and let me tell you it was not being able to see the actual texture of the snow on my HD TV! There used to be a time in the Olympics when the judges would all hold up their scores. This was so iconic that I used to say about things that happened in my life, “Israel gives it a 7.0”  but now it’s all electronics and the bionic man and woman couldn’t even compete with the athletes that steroids have built and the same is true of how the show is produced.

I sat and watched four hours the other night and was disgusted the entire time. If they had showed the events in their entirety, showed less commercials, gotten rid of the heartwarming stories of the athletes at home and those horribly uncomfortable moments with Bob Costas in the studio the whole thing could have been done in less than half the time.  I like Bob Costas but please, put him and his interviews on after the Olympics for those who want to watch a man who has dyed his hair so much that the texture is now the same as his tweed coat and had his face painted an odd sort of color usually reserved for the open casket dead after the events. I don’t want my Olympics interrupted by stories of the athletes, what they’re serving in the dorms or even listening to Dick Button handicapping what I could be actually watching if he wasn’t on my damn screen. I just want to see the Olympics, is that so wrong? Why can’t they show one event from start to finish at the Olympics? – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Love Means Two Don’t Become One – Don’t Get Me Started!

Feminists often talk about the damage that is done to young girls by giving them the image that there’s a knight on a white horse that is going to come and sweep them away to a perfect world in a castle. While I guess that has something to do with why some women (and men) can’t find the right guy, I think that there are other things that are far more damaging when it comes to helping people understand and maintain a healthy and successful relationship. Love means two don’t become one – Don’t Get Me Started!

When I was growing up I often heard this phrase of “two shall become one” and no coincidence I guess that it’s from a religious ceremony considering my one eye brow is constantly cocked in an upward direction when religious conventions create a standard that to me seems designed to keep us off balance enough so that we’ll continue to think we can only achieve happiness by donating money to a God who is full of rage with us but supposedly loves us all the same. It seems to me that the religious right have a relationship akin to Precious and her mother when it comes to their God but that’s their problem, not mine. Back to today’s topic. The thing is that I think phrases such as “soul mate” and “two shall become one” are far more damaging than any poor princess who is running away with a gay prince (come on, he’s wearing powder blue tights Cinderella, wake up, what are you Sleeping Beauty?). How exactly do two become one (without the aid of a mad scientist that only Spiderman will be able to destroy)? They don’t. What I think we tend to overlook or not want to see is that in order to be with someone you have to know who you are first and not lose that along the way. If “two becoming one” means that one of you “roll over” so that only one of your opinions, thoughts or dreams count then trust me when I say, you need to stop immediately because you’re headed down a road that will only lead one place, resentment settlement. That’s right, after years of you acquiescing you will find that you’re in a constant state of resentment, it’s as if you’ve moved to a place emotionally that’s as real as the settlement camps they used in Nazi Germany, once you’re at the resentment settlement you’re going to find that it alters everything else you will experience in that relationship and beyond. Maybe I went overboard when I fell in love with a six foot black man (considering I’m a 5’4” Jew) but it helps me to know that we will always be our own person, have our view of life that sometimes is the same and sometimes is very different. Being in a relationship with someone who is exactly like you must be the most boring thing in the world. You need someone to give you outside perspective and to help you to realize you’re not always right, wrong or wearing the right thing for your body.

The first couple of relationships I was in I was so worried about being the perfect spouse that I would constantly put myself and my thoughts aside until finally they could be stuffed down no longer and I would exploded and the relationship imploded. It wasn’t the other person’s fault that I was trying to second guess them so that I could be the perfect spouse and find a way for the “two of us to become one”, it was my fault. But I attribute it to being young and trying too hard to be a soul mate when I should have been trying to be my own person.

Let’s face it, relationships are hard enough as it is. I don’t care what anyone tells you, I’m here to tell you that even after twenty-one years there are days when I wake up and think, “Who the hell is in my bed and how do I get rid of him?” But most days I look at him and wonder what my life was like before him. We’ve been together so long that I sometimes find it hard to find a memory that doesn’t include him and it makes me really happy. Happy to have someone who is so not like me, happy to be with someone who loves me for me and as time goes by I find myself never asking if he’s my “soul mate” or if we “two have become one” because those are foolish school girl ideals that really make no sense and that don’t exist in our world, the world we’ve built together, two different people, choosing to share and live in the world we’ve created together. Love means two don’t become one – Don’t Get Me Started!

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