Random Musings

I hate cancer. I lost my Mom to cancer, and lost my sister to cancer. Then a few months ago my Dad called to tell me he’s been diagnosed with prostate cancer.

Yay! Cancer again!

My Dad had told me that during a routine exam, his PSA [prostate-specific antigen] levels were at ten; most healthy men have levels under 4 nanograms per milliliter. Now, my Dad is not one to take things sitting down, so with his doctor’s advice, they decided to watch the levels and recheck them in a few months.

That time they were up to 16; not good. So, again, on doctor’s advice, Dad started a regimen of therapies and a scheduled retest in six months.

Six months is this month.

Dad called me on Monday to tell me his PSA levels were at … one.

One! If only "one" was a multisyllabic word so I could put a ‘f**k’ in the middle of it.

But at least I could breathe, and my Dad could breathe, too. He’ll continue with his therapies and they’ll monitor him again in four months, and then, if the levels are still down, go from there.

I do love good news.

Speaking of which … following in the footsteps of NBC, Macy’s corporation has also fired Donald [t]Rump over those derogatory remarks he made about immigrants.

Univision. NBC. Macy’s. Now, if the GOP voters can fire him, too, this would be really great.

[photo source]

Over the last week, more than 35 million people have super imposed rainbows over their Facebook profile pictures using a free tool provided by the company.

A lot of famous folk, including Russell Simmons, California Attorney General Kamala Harris, and Leonardo DiCaprio, changed their profiles, but one person was not having it.

Vitaliy Milonov, the Russian politician responsible for the country’s “gay propaganda” laws, has said Facebook should be banned for allowing members to add a rainbow flag to their profile pictures.

Facebook. Banned. That little self-loathing closeted queer is on a tear, isn’t he?A 

Philadelphia diner recently changed the names of some items on their brunch menu and, well, could not keep up with the demand.

After the Supreme Court ruled that marriage is a legal right for all Americans, regardless of the couple’s gender composition, Justice Antonin Scalia was just as pissy and bitchy as he could be. So, Sam’s Morning Glory Diner in Philly opted to change the names of some of their breakfast entrées:

“Antonin Scalia is a Douche,” an egg dish with vegetables, cheese, and andouille sausage sold out before 10 AM on Sunday, while “The Supreme Court Finally Got It Right” quiches, available with or without prosciutto, were gone in less time than that.

Carol Mickey, who owns the restaurant, says:

“Not one single person complained. The atmosphere in [the diner] was really wonderful. People were just loving saying it! ‘I’ll have the Scalia is a Douche, please.’”

Loving it here, too.

This is Josh McAree, a model whose picture I stumbled across. There aren’t many men who could pull of a bun, much less a top knot, but, we’ll, he’s really rocking it.

Hair up or down, in a suit, or some jeans. Hot. Steamy, Sultry.

[photographed by Ivan Avila]

Carlos plays in our local community band, and tomorrow night he’ll be performing at a Fourth of July function in town, so he’s been rehearsing and rehearsing all those patriotic tunes.

I, however, don’t help much, because every time he play “You’re a Grand Old Flag,” I come marching into the office singing:

♪ ♫ You’re a grand old fag

You’re a high-flying fag

And forever in peace may you wave♪♫

I’m trying to get Ozzo, Tuxedo, MaxGoldberg and Consuelo to march through the room with me, but so far I’m having no luck.

[photo source]

A South Dakota county clerk has decided to oppose same-sex marriage, not by setting herself ablaze, but in an equally stupid way: she wants to marry her dog.

Seriously, how do we get from the idea of a same-couple to the idea that people will marry animals?

Are religious wingnut republican conservative asshats really that stupid?

Rhetorical question.

[photo source]

UPDATE:

Rick Jones, that Utah gay man who reported being gay-bashed, forced to drink bleach, and having the words “Die fag” carved into his skin has been revealed to be a sick and twisted liar.

He did it to himself.

Attorneys for Jones made the admission last week to the sheriff’s office in Millard County:

“Our client is responsible for all of the incidents and that would include the cutting of his own skin as well as his reports of burglary and vandalism at his home and his family business.”

The lawyers also said this was not a hoax, but a cry for help Jones says some family member don’t like him being a ‘mo.

Boo-effing-hoo. Grow a pair, Ricky. Man up, be gay and deal with it, because with your giant lie, you now make every other person who was truly gay bashed seem a little less reliable. i know how hard it is to come out, but to do this to yourself, and then ask for sympathy and money?

Get help, Ricky. And then just STFU.

Oh, and the Jones’ family announced they will not accept the nearly $12,000 raised through a GoFundMe campaign to pay his medical expenses.

Ya think?

Random Musings

Last weekend we had The Three; when bad things—or in our case, not bad just inconvenient—happen they usually come in Threes:

Number One: we have a fake tree — I have a yard full of pine trees, real pine trees, so I don’t like the idea of cutting one down just to decorate it and then throw it out — and we were putting it up when we realized that only about ten-percent of the lights worked in spotty areas of the tree. So we made a note to get some more lights for the tree on our way out.

Number Two: on our way out, we pushed the button to open the garage door and the bar that attached the door to the track so the door can be raised, snapped off the door. The pin that held the bar to the door had broken. So, we stopped in at The Homo Depot for lights, a pin, and a couple of cotter pins to fix the door.

Number Three: upon returning home I made a sandwich and sat down to watch some TV. There was a giant green strip running down the TV splitting the picture 70/30.

Threes.

Sidenote: Good news. While we debated on having the TV repaired or buying a new one if it was too expensive, we checked with one of our Smallville TV repair shops. The owner told us to try our DVD player and see if the green stripe was there, and then to turn off the TV and all its components at the power surge switch for five minutes.

Guess what? No more stripe. Apparently it had something to do with the cable rebooting itself and so the TV had to reboot as well. And that fix was free thanks to the good folks at Hall TV Repair!

Big news in the Coming Out Department this week …

Tom Daley didn’t Come Out. As gay. He came out saying he was dating a man, but didn’t feel the need to label himself.

“One thing I consider to be pretty important is to have some form of private life and you're probably thinking 'well why did you do a book and why did you do a documentary and stuff' but I've only ever talked about things I feel comfortable talking about. …It’s one of those things where in an ideal world I shouldn’t be doing this video because it shouldn’t matter but recently I was misquoted in an interview and it made me feel really angry and frustrated. Emotions that I’ve never felt before when reading quotes about myself. 

Honesty, for me is something I really do believe in. And I’ve always been honest. I may have been vague in some of my answers, but one thing I’ve never felt that comfortable talking about are my relationships, because it is what I get asked even if I’m doing sporting interviews ‘do you have a girlfriend, who are you seeing’ all that sort of stuff. 

I mean, I've been dating girls and I've never really had a serious relationship to talk about. Now I kind of feel ready to talk about relationships. Come Spring this year, my life changed, massively, when I met someone and they make me feel so happy, so safe and everything just feels great. 

Well that someone is a guy. And it did take me by surprise a little bit. It was always in the back of my head that something like that could happen. But it wasn’t until spring this year that something just clicked, it felt right. And I was like: OK. 

Like I said, my whole world just changed right there and then. Of course, I still fancy girls, but right now I’m dating a guy and I couldn’t be happier. I feel safe and it just feels right. “

Lotsa folks, gay and straight, are annoyed that he didn’t say, with trumpets and flags, I’m gay but what does it matter to us. He said he found someone he loved and who made him feel safe and that someone is a man.

Good for Tom.

PS That secret someone didn’t stay secret for long, because it was revealed a day later to be none other than screenwriter and LGBT activist Dustin Lance Black.

Congrats to the happy couple.

Overheard at work:

Female coworker: “Wow, Bob, I like your new haircut.”

Bob: “I like yours too, though I do think Bette Davis wore it better in Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?.

So the OMM—er, the One Million Moms … er, the 47,000 Moms to be accurate—is mighty pissed off at Macy’s for including a performance from the Broadway musical Kinky Boots during their annual parade:

“The annual tradition for family entertainment had a not-so-discrete agenda this time around. This year's parade chose to send a Politically Correct message, but their plan backfired and the statement they really sent to families is that Macy's cannot be trusted.

"Raise You Up" was not suitable for families for many reasons. The inappropriate act starred Kinky Boots, referencing a musical written to celebrate the differences in each other and included: (all) the men and women in thigh-high boots [mostly red pleather while others were sparkly "hooker" boots], a man in boxer shorts and men in burlesque and Moulin rouge costumes prancing around expressing themselves, RuPaul (famous drag queen) along with several men dressed in drag, transgender and transvestites, singing and dancing as an expression of "diversity" and honoring whatever sexuality you want.

The performance was sexually charged and quite offensive. Here are some, but not all of the lyrics to the song they chose to sing, to give you a better idea:

Accept yourself and you'll accept others too.Let love shine.Let pride be your guide.Change the world when you change your mind.Just be who you wanna be.You're beautiful; it's beautiful! 

Shame on Macy's for promoting this. We cannot trust Macy's Dept. Store any longer. This is the straw that broke the camel's back. It is clear that Macy's does not have our children's best interest in mind.

Macy's needs to know that trust must be earned and once trust is lost it is difficult to get back.”

A couple of things:

Those lyrics are offensive? Accept yourself? Have pride? You’re beautiful?

And, um, OMM, that wasn’t RuPaul, that was Tony winner Billy Porter. Not every Black man in drag is RuPaul.

So …. TV

Also at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade was a performance of the upcoming Live! TV airing of Carrie Underwood in The Sound of Music!

Except the performance was “I Am Sixteen Going On Seventeen” a cute, but kinda nonsensical choice. Why not have Carrie sing ♫♪ The hills are alive with the sound of music ♪♫ or ♫♪ Doe, a deer a female deer … etc ♪♫?

Well, maybe because we’d all be reminded that Carrie Underwood, while a capable singer, is no Julie Andrews.

I was reading that the new CBS show Mom was actually getting better. I watched the first episode — produced by the same dude that does 2.5 Men — and found it to be cheesy and dumb. But, hey, maybe changes were made, and I do like Ana Faris and Allison Janney, so I went back,

Cheesy and dumb.

Not nearly as cheesy and dumb as Kirstie Alley’s new show, Kirstie! With her former Cheers co-star Rhea Pearlman — trying not to be Carla — and former Seinfeld co-star Michael Richard — still playing Kramer … at least in the pilot.

Dumb.

Also in the Coming Out Department is actress Maria Bello who announced that she is, and has been in a relationship with a woman named Claire.

But, like Tom Daley, Bello isn’t saying she’s gay, she’s simply saying that she’s in love with a woman.

Do we need to hear the words? Do we need to label folks? Or, can we just be happy that people are in love?

Okay, it’s no secret that I loathe Mama Grizzly Bore™. I have since the moment McCain plucked her off the Alaskan tundra where she was looking at Russia to be his choice for Veep.

I loathe her ignorance; he aw shucks-itude; her holier than thou rollerness; and her stupidity.

And I loathe how she turns every anti-Obama speech she gives into something about slavery. She did that recently when talking about US debt to China, and said she wasn’t a racist but that’s what all racists say before they say racist things.

Then, Martin Bashir of MSNBC took her to task for the slavery remarks, and told vile stories of how slaves had been treated; including one where a slave who dared to talk back to his master was held down, his mouth opened, so another slave could defecate in his mouth.

Bashir thought MGB™ might deserve that same treatment.

And I thought he went too far; MGB™ is full of sh*t, there’s no doubt, but his analogy was wrong and stupid and insensitive. And it has apparently caused him to resign from his post at MSNBC following a so-called vacation from the airwaves.

I imagine the Mama Grizzly Bore™ is killing wolves and moose in celebration as we speak.

So, remember Dayna Morales, the gay server who said she got an anti-gay message on a credit card receipt in lieu of a tip?

Well, apparently she is out of a job. The Gallop Asian Bistro, where Morales worked, posted on their Facebook page that Dayna “is currently not on our employee schedule while (we) are still working to complete our investigation.”

I hope, if it turns out that Morales lied — and how hard would that be to prove, just look at the original receipt which the restaurant must still have — that Dayna gets kicked to the curb.

We have enough people in this country that hate us for being gay, we don’t need this kind of attention.

We Need A Christmas Miracle

John Toomey has been playing department store Santa at Macy's in San Francisco for over twenty years, and he is quite the popular one. But now, just before Christmas, Toomey has been fired after a couple complained that a joke he told them was inappropriate.

What's this? He's joking with kids and not just listening to them?

No, he was told that his Kris Kringle services would no longer be needed because of the objections from an older woman and her husband who visited him.

John Toomey: "When I ask the older people who sit on my lap if they've been good and they say, 'Yes,' I say, 'Gee, that's too bad.' Then, if they ask why Santa is so jolly, I joke that it's because I know where all the naughty boys and girls live." 

Toomey said it was the first time anyone complained about the joke, but first time's the charm, and he was given the big black Santa Claus boot. Toomey also made it clear that he never uses the joke with children.

f course, a Macy's spokeswoman had no comment about the firing because it's a personnel matter, but word is that many store employees were distraught that Toomey was let go.

Toomey, meanwhile, hopes to get work at parties and other stores: "I've got my Social Security and some savings, so I'll be OK. But I sure do miss being Santa."

And he'd still be Santa if a couple of Grinches hadn't decided to ruin Christmas.

source