Lazy Gay News

POACHED!

2011-03-07T10:51:00.000-08:00

Poach vb. Middle English pocchen, from Middle French pocher, from Old French poche: To take what's yours.

Poaching is a way of poking life in the eye and saying "You're going to have to wake up a little bit earlier to pull a fast one on this guy."

I'm a firm believer that we should break the discriminatory practice of reserving the awarding of trophies for athletes and competitive eaters. The former is totally disgusting, and not all of us are that good at the latter. Every time I see somebody running, dropping and rolling and it's not because they're on fire, it makes me want to vomit. But I do wish I had a more flexible esophagus.

If we awarded trophies for real victories, there would be trophies for magnificent poaching of somebody else's parking spot. Finding a parking spot on the weekend is kind of like maintaining a curse in Harry Potter. You lock your eyes on that spot and never break contact, muttering a constant stream of unbroken intention as you hone in. Other drivers see your intensity through the windshield and they are dissuaded, to continue on in search of parking alternatives.

But every now and then, a really bold cat decides that he's had about fucking enough with circling that parking lot, stuck behind a giant cream sedan stopped in the middle of the road as some mother screams instructions at her fleeing middle school-aged daughter, flagrantly disregarding the mounting line of honking cars behind her.

This cat wants to scream, "LADY, OF COURSE SHE'S GOING TO BATH AND BODY WORKS. YOU'RE RIGHT. SHE PROBABLY DOESN'T NEED ANY MORE. SHE'S GOING TO BUY IT ANYWAYS." But he knows that this selfish, values-voting cow with her big car parked right in the middle of the road will probably scream right back at him about how she has a right to parent her children whenever and wherever she feels like it, even if it's the middle of the road. She'll then, still screaming out the window, ask her daughter if there will be any boys.

"YES." Our hero screams.
"GAY ONES. IT'S BATH AND BODY WORKS."

At this point, the lady will go bananas.

She will scream and writhe in her seat belt because someone has said the word "gay" in front of her daughter without tacking on "in hell," and her daughter will now surely go pick up some cherry chapstick at Bath and Body Works and walk around thinking gay people might just be okay. This poor little girl doesn't know it, but for the next six years of her life, any time she is moved to drop the "f" bomb, it will be blamed on liberal influences at the Green Hills Mall.*

*Note: Many of my "f" bombs have been blamed on liberal influences at the Green Hills Mall. In fact, I'm pretty sure that if I were to don a burkha and join a branch of American al-Quaeda, it would be blamed on those fire-brand college educated hippies at the Mall.

The hip cat's eyes dart for a way out, because the parking lot situation has just escalated, and he's feeling a little unsafe. His eyes hit the empty spot. He sees the geriatric man driving that massive tank of an Oldsmobile doing the ritual "It's MINE! It's MINE!" incantation. He doesn't care. He goes for it. He swings his car in as the sedan mommy gives a carnal scream, and the geriatric man slams his weak fists on an ancient leSabre horn, and he takes what's his.

Poached.

I myself just did a slightly less sophisticated poach. I was at the city's most popular Starbucks, when I spied a particularly plushy chair. There was a man in the opposing plushy chair, but I sit first and ask questions later, so I went for it. There was a girl across from me, equidistant from the plushy, plushy chair. She paused to wonder if he had a wife, and while she philosophized, I took what was mine.

In case you were wondering:

Yes, it really is that comfortable.
I have a very nice little end table here to myself.
It has an outlet.
I'm far from the door, so I don't get any chilly gusts of wind.

It's an awesome chair. Poached.

My Fevered Dreams

2011-03-03T17:12:00.000-08:00

This week, I got the flu.

In my fevered delirium, I reached a few fascinating conclusions. Somewhere between normalcy and 104˚ I came to the fervent decision that time travel is real.

I've never really been one for paranoid conspiracy theory. Growing up there were a lot of people in my life who were really into various conspiracies, and I was never really sure who to believe. My dad had a dream that he was abducted by aliens, and rather than probe or kidnap him, they referred him to an excellent chiropractor and fixed his back. He woke up with a dramatic drop in pressure on his lumbar, and went about his life as usual. My dad is the kind of man who, when faced with a potential nocturnal alien abduction, would pass up the trauma and hysteria to sit back and enjoy the cranio-sacral benefits. He shrugged (which didn't hurt), and went about his business. About a week later, he ordered the $69.99 History Channel "American Abductions: TRUTH EXPOSED" DVD boxed set and watched it in his Man Cave.

Then there was the cab driver I had one time who took advantage of the fact that he had an unbroken, captive audience for 74 minutes to share his thoughts on the "Philadelphia Experiment." Wikipedia says that this refers to government testing on invisibility. My cab driver explained that this experiment was on government time travel, and that it worked, and that we were all surrounded by inter-space time agents. When asked me if they had taught me anything at Wellesley about secret government conspiracies (presumably because Secretary Clinton is training the class of 2011 in inter-galactic defense) I replied "Uh, sure..." and then blended together about six episodes of Doctor Who with "Introduction to the Ancient World: Classical Studies 102."

Every single teenage boy I've ever know has been utterly enthralled with anti-government conspiracy. There seems to be some cognitive dissonance on the fact that it takes about six hours at the DMV to get your license renewed, and that the only way you can fail that test in rural Tennessee is to have live, writhing fish for arms.

My theory on time travel, as concocted at 3 AM on Tuesday night is as follows:

Surely at some point in the future, time travel has been discovered. I mean, by this point they've pretty much had all of eternity to work on it. So where are the secret time-travelers hiding?

FOREIGN EXCHANGE STUDENTS.

Most Americans pride themselves on a complete and total, unabashed distaste and lack of knowledge of foreign culture. You could be a radiant space creature from the year 3000 come to spread a message of love and peace using the English of the future, but if you pulled that crap in Arizona, they'd have you dumped across the border in one hot desert minute.

We've pretty much chalked it up to fact that Asian cell phones were curing cancer while we were still beating rocks together to make fire, so I totally believe that these future humans could use their mind-bogglingly advanced technology in front of us with no adverse affect. I have a feeling that the time-travel book of guidelines probably says something like:

"LIMIT TELEPORTATION. LOOKS FLASHY. IF DEVICE OF TIME-INAPPROPRIATE COMPLEXITY REQUIRED, DON'T SWEAT IT TOO HARD."

Keep My Day Job

2011-02-22T15:22:00.000-08:00

I've never really gotten the swing of days off. The beneficent soul who dates me was on a business trip this week, so when I found myself with the rare day off, I didn't know what to do, but I made a go of it.

First, I sat in a giant stack of dirty laundry on my bed. I squashed it into roughly the shape of a Roman reclining bench, and read Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma" for about ten minutes. I felt very sophisticated about it. The New York Times said it was a masterful work of literary genius, and more importantly, there were grapes on the cover.

I stopped after ten minutes, because there were way too many Latin words in there. If I wanted to read Latin, I probably wouldn't have failed it on two continents.

While reading a book with grapes and fine cheese on the cover made me look very educated, sitting nestled amongst old socks and jeans felt a little fraternal, so I decided that the sophisticated next move would be to take a shower.

My parents always tell me they're surprised I never electrocuted myself or fell down stairs as a child. Once in my youth, as we were gazing at a painting of a large 19th century family at a museum, my mother told me that the women had so many children because most of them died during childhood. She gave me a meaningful look. I mention this because this afternoon, I thought I'd try to dry my hair using the electric space heater in our room.

Death Omens

2011-02-07T11:14:00.000-08:00

I knew I was totally screwed when I woke up Monday morning to the following hallucination:

It was worse than a Grim at the bottom of my tea cup.

When I hallucinate brownies, it's a harbinger signifying that:

a) I'm going to initiate some sort of totally unproductive PMS-rooted feelings talk in which I cry into a roll of toilet paper. Crying about feelings at Wellesley was the worst because we only had one-ply toilet paper, so both your ass and your eyes would get chapped.

b) I'm going to find a restaurant and order three desserts off the menu. Some women joke about this like "Ha, ha! I love chocolate so much I should marry it!" I am not joking, this is not a game, and I don't want to marry it. I want to smear it in my face and ingest it as a substitute for human interaction.

c) It's going to be a long week of ironic tragedies. The last time this happened, I got crapped on by three pigeons in one day. It was insanity. By the time I could get a change of clothing, I looked like a Jackson Pollock.

As it happened, the week was filled with not one, but all three of the afore mentioned scenarios. I sit here before you all in my bathrobe nursing a sinus infection and sorting through a box containing seven pounds of face soap.

I left my house on Monday to go to Diesel, which is the place lesbians go when they want to get away from it all by going to the one place they're basically guaranteed to run into each other at.

Diesel Cafe claims it's not a lesbian restaurant. This is an enormous joke. Diesel Cafe is not a lesbian restaurant in the same way that a bar called "The Assless Chap" discriminates against homosexuals.

Once at Diesel, overcome by feelings and haunted by the image revealed to me at Breakfast, I ordered one of each pastry on the menu and juggled them to a table in the back. I ate half of the load and was feeling sick when I looked up and was quite shocked to see a bunch of gays!

As every gay knows every other gay, I'll leave you in suspense as to the events that transpired over the next five hours, but suffice to say I left Diesel in a dark mood, the brownie omen never far from my mind.

As I rode the subway home, I felt a familiar warmth trickle through me. It wasn't love. It wasn't fulfillment. I looked down at my hands and shirt, and I was covered in blood. The other people on the subway scooted to the far edges of their tiny seats, and a young boy stared. My nose was shooting blood, and I was two stories underground and wearing a totally awesome outfit that was totally getting wrecked by my nose. I thought about getting off the train at Harvard.

"No," I whispered poetically, even dramatically to myself. "Let it bleed. Like happiness, it's source will dry quickly." So I let the doors close, and about two seconds later realized that blood, unlike happiness, has a repository of about 6 quarts, and at 3 tsp/minute, 192 tsp/quart, I needed to get off the fucking train and stop bleeding on myself.

I ran up the escalator at Central holding an ancient napkin against my nose, crossed the street to my favorite (non-lesbian) cafe, where the woman holding the bathroom key grimaced and handed it to me, the metal chain hanging from her pinky finger, which I'm assuming she later boiled.

In my head I had been imagining I looked like this:

In actuality, I looked more like this:

I had blood smeared all over my cheeks and my forehead with blood running down both of my arms. I looked like William Wallace if he had, following battle, eaten his enemies. I was wearing head-to-toe Kate Spade, whose motto for 2011 is "LIVE COLORFULLY." Done and done.

I got home, got a sinus infection, and spent the next three days in bed. Today is my first day back in the world, so I'm very excited to be back on LGN, and am eagerly anticipating no more freak accidents.

Beck's In The City Part 1: Bagpipes

2011-01-11T10:25:00.000-08:00

I spent the last three days at APEC in New York City, which is a giant music showcase for musicians trying to book gigs.

There are a truly staggering number of bagpipers out there looking for work. It makes me want to throw a giant ceilidh and hire all of them. I wish that a visionary like FDR would make a New Deal-esque program for these vocationless pipers and put them to work. How spectacular would it be if the opening of every new Starbucks was heralded by twenty bagpipers playing Amazing Grace?

I used to live in this pretty posh area of Nashville where the houses are old, the money is older, and nude joggers are swiftly brought to justice. One family decided that they needed to leave a tangible mark on the city of Belle Meade.

One day, all the neighbors were called out to the main boulevard, where a line of fifty bagpipers and Scottish dancers in full regalia were leaping down the closed-off boulevard towards a grassy bank that was covered in pristine white tarps. The great thing about the City of Belle Meade is that you can get arrested for driving an economy car one mile over the speed limit, but if you want to put up homemade signs and close the main thorough-way for a giant Scottish processional in the middle of the work day... Danny boy, play on.

There were white-tuxedo caterers standing in people's front lawns carrying bacon mini-quiches on trays. Back before Nashville got a Macy's, when Sam's Club was considered a legitimate caterer, mini-quiches were considered to be the height of culture. The family we're discussing has boasted that Bill Clinton and six heads of state have been guests at their home. I'm sure they were served mini-quiche. Bon appetit, Sarcozy.

The procession slowed, the drummers hummed on their goat-skin drums, and the neighbors whispered and consumed their tiny quiche, titillated. In 1990, Nashville was a little less "The City that Almost Got the Olympics," a little more fur-trapping outpost, so a grand processional of bagpipers was a pretty big fucking deal. At last, the mayor of Belle Meade gave a speech and the tarps were whipped off with a grand flourish to display a magnificent, lasting tribute to that noble symbol of Tennessee local fauna:

The random raccoon.

In case you were wondering, the one that appears to be burrowing into the wall is, in fact, just a butt. There's no head on the other side.

The world needs more random raccoons. The ones on Belle Meade Boulevard are a sad relic of a better age... I remember back before the recession when blowing $20,000 erecting solid bronze rodents on a public road was a meaningful service to the public. I took it for granted that the Cheek family was not only providing a beautiful, if obtuse display of lasting art, but they were providing gainful employment of dozens of Appalachian bagpipers.

I've decided that when I become wealthy and my trash is no longer quite so white, I will erect a statue in Green Hills and have a processional. There will be quiche.

Out-Queering The Bus Queers

2011-01-03T16:50:00.000-08:00

Today, I got on the 39, which is the Club Med of MBTA bus lines. It's basically the Gay Shuttle. The Gay Shuttle runs from the organic cooperative grocery store along the boutiques of artisan jewelry to the vegan gluten-free cupcake bakery, through the gayborhood, past the lesbian H&M ads, which are oddly posted smack dab in the middle of the VA Hospital parking lot between two "VOTE REPUBLICAN" trucks that sit in defiance of "global warming" to conclude at the subway station.

I take the Gay Shuttle to one of my jobs... I can't name names, but it's the one where I wear fanciful shoes and lacquered bangles and fantastical headbands.

I take my seat. Never a window seat, because I have this irrational fear of people riding the bus, falling asleep leaning against the window and peeing themselves, thereby contaminating the seat. I don't know why this doesn't apply to aisle seats.

I remove my book from my totally awesome handbag. Beginning next week, it will be gold sparkles. This week, it's cream pebbled leather with mahogany trim, but it's still a serious bag.

This week, my book is Glenn Beck's "The Christmas Sweater." I'm not ashamed. The cover is iridescent. I don't have to be reading "War and Peace" to prove how smart I am to the other bus riders. I know I'm literate.*

*This quality is not strictly required for the appreciation of "The Christmas Sweater," as there are many pictures, presumably for the benefit of his regular listeners.

So I sat on the Gay Shuttle on my way into work on Thursday, shimmering pleated Kate Spade skirt, bright red tights, pearl earrings and fluffy blouse donned reading Glenn Beck's "A Christmas Story," when the Bus Queers started to board.

Bus Queers always board alone. If a Bus Queer is, through some anomaly, sporting a new pair of chucks that doesn't look like it's been backed over by the hybrid that they took white-water rafting, you'd better fucking believe that there's a Ginsberg quote scribbled in ball-point pen on the instep. Bus Queers do not wear crisp white anything. They eschew it as a color.

They sit down and scan the bus. Bus Queer, I see you. I sniffed you out the minute you got on the bus. I don't need to mention the Bieber hair, the square glasses, the black denim jacket, or the pants with pockets that could hold every camel, bushel, and chaff of the twelve tribes of Israel. I got your number, and such easy lesbian jokes are for amateurs.*

*See this blog, seven months ago.

I see you see me reading Glenn Beck's "The Christmas Sweater."

I see you see my powder puff hat.

I see you.

Your lip curls a little. I see that. You slouch back into the chair, reach into your book bag, and pull out Jessica Valenti's "The Purity Myth," rather pointedly. You aim its cover so that it squarely faces my book's cover, which is still Glenn Beck's "The Christmas Sweater." Perhaps you are hoping that by facing "The Purity Myth" towards "The Christmas Sweater," our book's raw energies will come to life and duel, hot manna crackling, like Harry and Lord Voldemort's respective wands in "The Goblet of Fire."

Well guess what, Bus Queer? You're going to have to wake up a little earlier to pull the feminist moral superiority card on this guy. I've already read "The Purity Myth." I made sure my nieces obtained copies of "And Tango Makes Three," and I read "Feministing," "Joe My God," and "Pam's House Blend" before breakfast every day.*

*For breakfast, I often feel the compulsion to mix my cereal with tequila. I'm sure this is unrelated.

I know that you think I'm a heterosexual that only cares about shopping. I become slightly concerned that you might be disembarking the bus after me, because I am, in fact, getting off at the Prudential Center Mall. You will think you are right. This bothers me.

The Museum of Fine Arts approaches. You don't get off. I don't get off. If I really was the Kate Spade Girl, I'd be getting off at the Museum of Fine Arts to spend the day Exploring the Modern Art Section, then Riding a Trolley, Letting Go of a Balloon, Jumping in a Puddle, or Something Else That's Truly Wonderful. I am not the Kate Spade Girl, so I'm spending the day Working.

You, being a Bus Queer, are oblivious to the ramifications of this bus stop. We go on, and the stakes are raised.

Northeastern University passes. You are still on the bus. This concerns me. If you had gotten off the bus at Northeastern University, I could have jumped up on my seat and shouted:

"HA! YOU GO TO A SCHOOL THAT CARES ABOUT FOOTBALL! TAKE THAT, BUS QUEER!"

But now there is only one more stop before the mall, and I have to face your smug, righteous, Bus Queer gaze if you don't get off at Symphony. Nobody gets off at Symphony. Symphony is for sad people who want to die crossing Massachusetts Avenue; those who desire that their only corporeal legacy be a smear on the bottom of an Independent Taxi.

Of course you don't disembark at Symphony. I didn't think you would.

I begin to place Glenn back in my totally awesome bag. I see you look up across the top of "The Purity Myth." You think you're being subtle. You probably think that I suspect that you're gay, but that as a heterosexual, I have placed you somewhere between Ellen and Rosie on my Scale for Obvious Dyke Identification.

Girl, you couldn't be more wrong. I take toasters like Goodwill. I have an excellent manicure on my very short fingernails. I have just out-queered you. If you went 180 degrees from what a feminine woman should look like, I went 360. If the gender spectrum were a race track, I lapped you, son.

I'm the one getting up to shop in the powder puff hat.

And you just got out-queered.

Fill In the Blank

2010-12-28T19:21:00.000-08:00

Jared Leto looks __________-er than a:

a) Jamaica Plain bike lane

b) West Hollywood brunch spot

c) Open mike night with six kinds of artisanal beers in the heart of the Castro.

Why My Gaining Weight Is Your Fault.

2010-12-28T09:24:00.001-08:00

Lazy gays,

I am in the process of having my shit wrecked by my insurance company, so if the next several weeks are particularly snide, it's because I'm being crucified by a bunch of suit-clad super-villains.

Why?

Because when I was nearly unconscious in the back of a cab because of a kidney stone wedged in one of those very small and apparently quite fragile tubes, my driver "chose an out-of-network provider," a.k.a. "the nearest possible emergency room."

Haha.

Hahaha.

I am now left with several coping options, begging and pleading and threatening my insurance company not having worked.

UNHEALTHY COPING OPTIONS:

Attavan for breakfast

Adrenaline rush activities, like sky diving or eating off Mexican street carts

Anger directed at friends and loved ones and innocent bystanders like the very young or the very old and infirm. The latter are ideal because they aren't terribly mobile.

Karaoke

LSD

PCP

QVC

MODERATELY HEALTHY COPING OPTIONS:

Drinking my body weight in hazelnut soy no-whip hot chocolate. I'm not specifying size here, because I prefer not to limit myself during these dark times.

Eating a bag of kettle corn and crushing the kernels between my teeth like the bones of the unrighteous.

Crying in empty parking lots with the sun roof open so that I can feel the sad glow of the melancholy moon.

HEALTHY COPING OPTIONS:

Cry to a therapist with a clip board instead of the neon sign on top of Trader Joe's.

Exercise to boost adrenaline

Focus on eating healthy, well-rounded meals

Note: If I chose any of the "healthy coping options," it would mean that I was a sad, boring, and a huge tool. I would rather be frantic and totally screwed than be well-rounded and uninteresting.

I've told myself that as long as I steer clear of any (or well... most) of the "UNHEALTHY" options, then I'm doing a pretty damn good job. I did lash out at a salesperson about the gender binary manifest in baby clothing, but those of you who know me that if there's one thing I hate more than pregnant people, it's the patriarchy, and Baby Gap is the union of the two.

So I sit here at Starbucks in Nashville, drinking a six hundred calorie drink, trying to dull the pain, and when I don't fit in my pants because I've eaten myself up three or four sizes, I'm sending the clothing bill to my insurance company.

File that one under "out-of-network provider," douche bags.

Board Games

2010-12-26T21:10:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I feel like my life is a game of Monopoly where somebody went through and took all the "Bank Error In Your Favor: Collect $200!" cards and replaced them with ones like "Get Shanked on Baltic Avenue."

Whatever happened to nice surprises? I believe that misery begets comedy, but I'm already aware that I'm hilarious, so I wish the B&O Railroad of Life would stop plowing my cows and leave them to graze in my fucking proverbial pastures.

It's hard to see the lesson here. In fact, it kind of feels like the kind of lesson where the teacher is trying to get the information through by throwing textbooks at your face. I feel like I'm not learning the lesson... I'm learning to duck.

How about once, the deck gets stacked for me? Aside from one extremely fortunate injury, the last three years have been a whole lot of pain, vomiting, and expensive yet totally ineffective medical treatment provided by patronizing and totally inept health care providers. Why is it that in any other industry, we can get our money back, but with health care we can be misdiagnosed, subjected to painful and totally useless procedures, insulted and flat out ignored, but there is no financial recourse?

A TALE OF TWENTY PREGNANCY TESTS

I talk about my medical ailments more than your aging great aunt, so if this tale is new to you, that means we're probably only internet friends, not real friends.

Beginning October 10th of last year, I began a non-stop roller coaster of nausea and vomiting. Imagine having food poisoning every single day. You can't eat, you can't sleep, and if anybody mentions the word "food" or anything having to do with food, you run to the bathroom and upchuck.

As this was an ailment of the stomach, my doctors naturally assumed it had nothing to do with food, because boy, that would be a crazy thing.

I can remember my first few doctor's appointments after we established that it definitely was not a stomach flu...

"I have to ask, is there any chance you're pregnant?"

"Doctor, you just did a chest exam, so surely you're aware of the hair situation going on in my armpits."

I went into the bathroom so he could "check for a UTI" and two weeks later on my billing statement...

"Fuck me! He gave me a fucking pregnancy test!"

I went back.

"Doctor, I have to let you know I'm a little upset. I told you flat out that I'm a huge lesbian. I believe I used those exact words. Huge. The Biggest."

He mumbled something about being thorough.

I'm here to tell you guys that the "being thorough" argument is crap. If you ask a patient if he's been to Africa and he says that he's spent his entire life in rural Wyoming, unless this is an episode of House, your physician rules out tse tse fly bites and moves on.

I was exposed to heterosexuality briefly, many many years ago. It's been a really long time, so unless it has a lengthier gestation period than I was previously aware, I am at a higher risk for consumption than I am for heterosexuality.

It happened again two weeks later. I was in to get my gall bladder shot full of some madness, and when I got my statement from the new clinic...

"FUCK ME! ANOTHER FUCKING PREGNANCY TEST."

I was beginning to get insulted by this point. Any reasonable person would.

I believe it was five or six more pregnancy tests by various physicians, when I landed in the ER from a biscuit. This time, I was square with the doctor. I sent my parents outside.

"I'm going to level with you, Doctor I Just Met. I am not pregnant. I am not pregnant today, I was not pregnant yesterday. I was not pregnant seven pregnancy tests ago, and that's a trend I continue. It's an unbroken chain of no birth and re-no-birth, a fractal of infertility in spiraling galaxies that resemble barren uterii.

"I understand that you probably get a lot of Tennessee bumpkins in here who are eight months pregnant and are shocked to hear that the invisible pumpkin seed fairy didn't visit them at Halloween to leave a baby on their stoop, but I went to science class. I know what's up. And what's up is not a baby. What's up is every piece of food I've tried to keep down in the last three months.

"I am not a Katy Perry, 'I Kissed a Girl and I Liked It' queer. I am an 'I Kissed a Boy and Wasn't Terribly Impressed' queer. I am 'I Heard About Burning Bras and It Sounded Like A Pretty Good Idea' queer. I am not a weekend lesbian. I am full-time, unapologetic rug-munching, fish-eating, feminist homosexual. I do, incidentally, own cherry chap-stick. I am NOT PREGNANT."

I'm sure you can guess what I saw on my next statement.

If you're going to skip doing your job and just diagnose me as "female," at least jot me down as having something elegant and dainty, like the vapors. Unwed teen pregnancy without an MTV reality show just feels hollow to me.

Lady illnesses are the best. They're like real illnesses, except less serious, more emotional, and frequently non-existant. For instance, I have a lot of friends who have full-blown hemophilia, but since they're ladies, they are "emotional women" who incidentally require ladies' blood transfusions once a month.

She may be weary

Women do get weary

Wearing the same shabby dress

So if she's weary

Try a pint of AB-neg.

In short, I am full of vegan, feminist rage, and when the new sexual revolution comes, I sincerely hope that useless FUCKING pregnancy tests are the first against the wall.

Link: A Bunch of Queers Strong...

2010-12-16T09:17:00.001-08:00

Here's the link to the new Facebook page!

A Bunch of Queers Strong for Belmont University Queers

Quick Take: A Bunch of Queers for Belmont

2010-12-10T11:18:00.000-08:00

My cousin is leading the charge to see equality become reality at Belmont University. She's been organizing sit-ins, administrating the facebook group, and has been on the news several times to try to raise awareness for the cause. It's never easy to stand up for what's right, especially when what's right is in direct opposition to the way that you were raised.

I'm from Nashville. I practically grew up at Belmont. Three members of my immediate family either are currently at Belmont or are alums. I hate it when people write Belmont off as "just another Christian school," because it's really so much more than that. It's part of a vibrant (and liberal) music production community, and part of the eclectic, diverse, and interesting culture of Nashville. More than that, it's queer as a three dollar bill.

I'm serious. There are a truly staggering number of gay people at Belmont. It's gayer than a Wellesley rugby match where Tegan and Sara are playing defensive line-back. Based on the number of gay people I've almost run over at that stupid intersection on campus with the fountain, I've calculated that either 80% of the campus is gay, or that all gay students feel the need to throw themselves into traffic, because they'd rather die than wait in line for coffee at Bongo Java.

Anyways, what the news isn't telling you, and what the "We don't hate gays! Honest!" administration is trying to keep from the media is the fact that the school's administration has repeatedly blocked a campus LGBT organization from organizing and meeting on campus. As a "compromise," they've offered students the chance to "discuss homosexuality from a Christian perspective."

Boy, that sounds awesome. Let's table our Pride plans for a second and talk about whether it's more fun to be stoned to death with limestone or shale. *

*Note: I said this to a queer friend of mine, and he said he'd prefer basalt because: "It's more glam."

That being said, I'm launching a group on facebook called "A BUNCH OF QUEERS STRONG FOR BELMONT." I hope you'll all join. Because there is a better way. Lots of other schools are doing it. And right now, Belmont isn't.

Home For the Holigays 2: Crappy Wrapping

2010-12-06T09:16:00.000-08:00

It’s time for my yearly recommitment to gift-wrapping. Every year I say it’s going to not suck as hard as last year. I’m way too old for a terrible wrapping job to look cute, quaint, and homemade. It's not like it was when you were a kid and everybody just assumed that you've never wrapped a present before. When I was six, the adults would coo and fawn over my gift and ask me if I wrapped it myself. At 23, when they see my box, they assume I’ve caved under the pressure of holiday anxiety and have been privately drinking.

It's pretty much professional pride that keeps me from using those charity wrapping stations in the malls. I always see a bunch of dudes lined up, shuffling awkwardly as they vacillate between Christmas and Hanukkah wrapping paper, and I turn away and run in a cold sweat. I know that nobody who owns as many issues of Martha Stewart Living as I do should be donating a dollar to the ASPCA to have a simple square box wrapped. What am I, challenged?

So I trudge down to the basement, year after year, and lug out the box of wrapping paper in search of the perfect roll. For whatever reason, despite the fact that I can now legally drink with my big gay partner and my brother is almost in college, our wrapping paper remains 97% Disney Princesses and 3% slivers of Christmas paper that would be hard-pressed to wrap a thimble. I have no idea why we have so much Disney wrapping paper. It's actually insane. As I calculate, there have been 23 Christmases and only four Disney Princesses since I was born, so something about this statistic is unsettling.

I don’t know about you guys, but in the world in which I operate, "We always used to have _____ in the house. Somebody just used it up, and then left the tube/box/empty bag there because they were too damn lazy to recycle it/buy a new one/bury it with dignity." For instance, if I happen to be looking for the perfect wrapping paper for a lesbian Kwanzaa fête, I jump to the immediate conclusion that it must have been on that empty roll that’s now lying on the closet floor. I then conclude that my dad must have just used it up at his Shoney’s Model Aviation Society All-You-Can-Eat Christmas Brunch last week, damn it.

And then there's the matter of folding. I just bought this gorgeous gold glitter paper to wrap all my presents, and ten minutes later, the damn stuff was so stiff, all my tape popped out and the present fell out of three layers of wrapping paper. I had to encircle the entire thing in tape. It looks like a plastic explosive. Last year, I got the same kind of wrapping paper, and I remember screaming, breaking the stapler open so it was long-ways like elementary school teachers do when they mean business, and just stapling the crap out of a Macy’s box. It was ugly. I think I actually stapled the sweater inside.

To make matters worse, my best friend and her parents wrap presents like champions. The way they match ribbon, paper, and sparkling, dangling accoutrements would make the finest Japanese papiere commit ritual disembowelment with a Martha Stewart Collection trowel. Every year, she won't hang out with me for a day because she and her mother spend literally twelve hours wrapping gifts. While I'm stapling the shit out of some box with the crazy eyes, she's coaxing an amaryllis to bloom early so that I can have a lovely fresh blossom with just the faintest patina of morning dew on the outside of my present.

Friends, this is where I leave you.

Urge Your Senators to Pass the Gay Bill of Special Rights

2010-12-01T07:32:00.000-08:00

Practicing homosexuals,

Fellow gay cheerleaders,

I am writing to apologize to you today. This blog has over-looked someone special for a very long time. This man somehow slipped through our limp-wristed finger tips, but today he gets the recognition he deserves, thanks to our friends at Pam's House Blend:

A widely distributed e-mail written by Virginia's Eugene Delgaudio for the Public Advocate about TSA, claims the pat downs are part of a "Homosexual Agenda." And he criticizes TSA's non-discrimination hiring policy.

"It's the federal employee's version of the Gay Bill of Special Rights... That means the next TSA official that gives you an 'enhanced pat down' could be a practicing homosexual secretly getting pleasure from your submission," Delgaudio wrote.

The homophobic straight man is so terrified of being stared at or groped by strange men that if he took the 5 PM subway home as a young woman, he would have a nervous breakdown and have to be carried off the train in fits.

The way this guy describes the intimate encounter between a tough, rugged, chiseled TSA man in uniform ruthlessly having his way with the... sorry, what was I saying?

Anyways, the most important part of this PSA is not the part about the BDSM dungeon scene going down in the lobby of TF Green Airport.

It's the part about the Gay Bill of Special Rights. I wasn't sure if he was referring to the fight to end DADT, the Federal Employee Non-Discrimination Act, or the attempts to overturn DOMA. But it sounds like it's probably something way better (via Pam's House Blend):

Dear ---,

The Radical Homosexuals are cheerleading as their allies in Congress begin the "Lame Duck" session of Congress this week.

As you know, they want to ram through their entire agenda from the Gay Bill of Special Rights to the Homosexual Classrooms Act.

Now is the time to stand up for the family and make your voice heard!

The Homosexual Classrooms Act is the act in which gay people can teach in schools and Tap becomes an integral part of the public school curriculum. During Gay Sex History Month in April, kids are taught about the history of bath houses, and on teacher inservice days, the faculty gets naked and celebrates the sacred feminine in a midnight black mass.

Last year when they passed the Homosexual Classrooms Act in Massachusetts, Wolburn Elementary's Miss Sharon, the fourth grade science teacher, covered herself in chicken blood and shouted that she was the virgin, mother, and crone.

The Gay Bill of Special Rights is kind of like the Declaration of Independence in that it was created by a bunch of white guys in wigs and tights with no ladies anywhere in sight. It establishes special rules that only apply to Gay People, and sets them in an exalted place high above that of their white, wealthy, Christian peers.

You might even call it "privilege."

Home for the Holigays.

2010-11-29T13:27:00.001-08:00

Hey gays,

Sorry I've been away.

Happy Holigays!

The holidays here at Lazy Gay News mean only a few things.

I'm sure the history of Christmas is familiar to many of you, but some of you might be Canadian and this is the time of year that you worship mounties and grizzly bears:

"The winter solstice occurs exactly when the Earth's axial tilt is farthest away from the sun. The seasonal significance of the winter solstice is in the reversal of the gradual lengthening of nights and shortening of days.

Since the event is seen as the reversal of the Sun's ebbing presence in the sky, concepts of the birth or rebirth of sun gods have been common and, in cultures using winter solstitially based cyclic calendars, the year as reborn has been celebrated with regard to life-death-rebirth deities or new beginnings such as Hogmanay's redding, a New Year cleaning tradition.

In many Western cultures, this is the time of year that wealthy woman seek men of a homosexual persuasion to plan lavish holiday parties, accompany them shopping, and tell them that they should put the cookie down because it will make them fat, and if they become fat they will be dead in the eyes of their gay best friend."

My problem is that as a big lesbian, not only do people assume that the only contribution that I can make to holiday parties is spare lumber, but I am prohibited from wearing more than .02% of my body weight in sequins. If I had my way, they would bury me in a sepulcher of bedazzled rhinestones that would make my cold dead body sparkle in the setting sun.

A gay dude came into this store I was shopping at and picked up a certain heel that looks like Elvis' wet dream and said "FABULOUS!" And the shopkeepers cooed appreciatively. I put on the heel, and my family said I looked like white trash.

My second problem is that as I try to find the perfect gift for my girlfriend, I have trouble explaining to the sales associates what it is exactly that I'm looking for. My first few times were a little rocky.

"I'm shopping for my uh... boyfriend. He likes brains."

"...Oh. We don't... have any brains here... I think." Then they gave me a look that was somewhere between the fear that I too might like brains, or pity that I'm dating somebody who probably has a lampshade made of human flesh.

My second attempt wasn't a whole lot better.

"I'm shopping for my gay girlfriend. She likes curiosities."

No shit, the guy handed me a leather-bound dictionary. This is how straight men's minds work. This is why I constantly have to keep men at my high-end ladies purse shop from buying their wives briefcases for their birthday. I consider myself an unsung hero.

For those of you who don't know, my girlfriend and I have a history of giving each other ridiculous gifts. Last year, we both gave each other monogrammed snuggies (TOTALLY unbeknownst to the other person... it just happened that way). For her birthday, I gave her a siñata... that's a piñata filled with booze. So now I'm trying to top it, and unless I fill an actual donkey with tequila, it's looking pretty impossible.

Things my girlfriend would have gotten for Christmas had I not exercised restraint:

-12 Months of Rustic Roosters wall calendar

-A disembodied hand for holding religious paraphernalia, until I decided it was creepy

-A candle shaped like a smoking pipe

-A bong that I thought was a vase for like 2o minutes as I carried it around the shop. Turns out that shop is a head shop... Awkward.

For all you gays out there shopping, good luck. It's ugly out there. People will assume you're looking for power tools or combat boots for your big lesbo lover (Incidentally, mine already has both.) They'll also assume that being a lesbian, you are unfamiliar with women's sizing because all your pants come from the little boy's section of Old Navy. They will proceed to explain to you the notion of accessorizing, rolling their eyes at your wrist to let you know that your leather cuff is your judge, jury, and executioner.

Stay strong, friends. ShopStrong.

A Hint, Perhaps?

2010-10-31T02:45:00.000-07:00

Those of you who know me know that I'm not the most feminine of ladies, and certainly not the most fashionable of persons. This has long been a point of contention between myself and my mother, who is convinced that I'm a changeling. I have a well-loved pair of men's khaki cargo shorts that she referred to as my "dyke shorts" before I came out and which she now refers to as "those." Allow me to set the scene:

INT. ALLISON'S HOUSE - MORNING

Allison walks down the stairs wearing aforementioned awesome shorts and a t-shirt and enters the dining room. Her mother, drinking a cup of coffee, looks up from the newspaper.

ALLISON
Hi mom.

MOM
You're wearing those again?

So when I turned on the ol' DVR to watch last week's episode of The Office, I couldn't help feel like she was trying to tell me something by taping an episode of What Not to Wear, a show she rarely watches, let alone DVRs. The episode's description?

"A mortgage broker/biker mom whose fashions have never come out of a 1970s lesbian closet tries to find a new sense of personal style and self."

Me Tarzan, You Gay.

2010-10-29T08:40:00.000-07:00

Possibly the most reasoned argument against homosexuality that I've heard so far. Via JoeMyGod.

"Homosexuality is bad thing. It used to be useful when we were cavemen and we needed people to guard the caves full of women and children. If I’m a guy out hunting, I want to leave someone back at the cave tending to my wife and kids, and I don’t want a normal guy having that kind of access to my wife and kids. So, in our evolution, you can see that there use to be a utility for homosexuality, but that was when we were cavemen and we aren’t cavemen anymore. So, homosexuality is obsolete. But you can see what happens when homosexuals get power — like in Iowa City. They are running rampant. They are doing vicious stuff. Read Shakespeare’s Othello. Basically the homosexuals are like the Iago figure. " - NOM supporter Randy Crawford

Let's Play A Game

2010-10-28T10:21:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since we sat down and played "My Dad's Republican Bingo" together. I decided that since I'm moving and the ol' Nixon chips have nestled amongst the chaos that is my apartment, we should play a new game.

I've noticed the massive outreach to LGBT youth lately on the part of celebrities, and I'm really touched that finally gay young adults are being acknowledged by the larger community. Tons of celebrities have been posting videos in support of gay people. I find that it feels like a movement that's almost as inclusive as the gay rights movement.

Towleroad:

Joe My God:

Even major television networks are getting on the bandwagon and are making shows about gay people.

Are we starting to notice a pattern? Maybe not...

There are gay commercials.

(Click for complete list)

McDonald's

PSP

Heinz (Full disclosure, this is a totally adorable ad that melted my hard heart)

Oakleys

Any pattern yet? No? Try some affirming gay-oriented music videos by famous female celebrities!

Game time:

It's a damn sausage fest up in Hollywood.

Hollywood and the media want you to know that it's fine to be gay. Gay is A-OK. If I hear one more person say "It Gets Better" and then go talk about their gay hairdresser and how great he is, I'm going to tear my hair out and move to the farthest corner of Siberia where youtube is a kind of caribou that you pelt in harsh winters.

I challenge you to find a talk-show guest, a pundit guest-starring on a news show, or an "It Gets Better" video that isn't male or referring to males. There are, of course, a few notable exceptions. The women's colleges have made a good showing, as have Rachel Maddow and Ellen, but the overwhelming focus on gay males comes at a cost, and that cost is the deafening silence that addresses lesbian teens.

Watch LOGO sometime. The gay commercials? Mostly men. Read gay blogs. The sexist bullshit that goes down in the comments will make your eyes water. LGBT representative to the White House? Joe Solomnese. A big "G." Gay male suicides are immediately visible to the entire nation.

When will lesbians be called to the table? Why is it that lesbians seem to constantly play second fiddle to male pain and suffering in the gay rights movement? As a lesbian, I've been photographed in public by strangers who thought that my holding hands with my girlfriend was masturbatory material. My friend has lost her home and her family because of her "alternative lifestyle." Another friend had her door beaten in with a hammer by a family member after he found out about her sexuality. As lesbians, my friends and family have faced the same torments, the same threats of violence, of losing their homes, their jobs, the same disgust and anger felt by those who feel that we have "betrayed" our genders as men have.

It is unacceptable that we should remain invisible. That the same artist who "kissed a girl and liked it," making a career out of titillating faux-lesbian exhibitionism, is suddenly an LGBT ally for including one gay male kiss in a music video. It's unacceptable that sexism rages on in the LGBT community, and it's unacceptable that we let it.

Where are all the Ls? Why is it that the people speaking out about gay issues use LGBT when possible, but nearly always substitute the acronym with male pronouns?

And why is it that Rachel Maddow looks so much like Where's Waldo?

Live Blogging My Staph Infection: The Journey Continues

2010-10-25T11:19:00.000-07:00

I have affectionately named my staph infection "Steve."

Steve and I went to the ER last night at midnight.

Top 3 shows that should never play in an ER waiting room:

1) HOUSE. This was actually playing. The main character died of, no shit, a staph infection.

2) Kourtney and Khloe Take Miami. Death becomes the more attractive alternative.

3) Glenn Beck. When you're surrounded by pregnant teenagers in their rainbow PJ's rubbing their bellies in an ER at 3 AM, listening to a moralist blather about the effectiveness of abstinence-only education is totally surreal.

Live Blog: Staph Infection III

2010-10-23T18:42:00.001-07:00

Live Blog: The Surgical Removal of My Staph Infection II

2010-10-22T23:08:00.000-07:00

2:13 AM

My ladyfriend and I went over to finish cleaning and re-arranging my house-sitting lady's house while I was still flying high enough on the drugs to not be bothered by cleaning out ancient salsa. We finished at 11 PM, called the taxi company...

.......

Who sent three cabs... which we found out later, when we were back at the ladyfriend's house and saw them waiting there. Thankfully the third cab company we called got the freaking address right. Mmmmm.... The third round of painkillers are kicking in. I feel so warm.

Don't you guys hate it how it's impossible to wear a hoodie over naked skin? The zipper freezes my happy trail.

Live Blog: The Surgical Removal of My Staph Infection

2010-10-22T14:29:00.000-07:00

Thank you to all of you who routinely check this blog. For you, I half-write posts, save them as drafts, and post every fortnight. You guys keep believing in me. That's awesome.

As you can tell, I'm totally baked right now. I had a freak staph infection pop up in 48 hours, and I just had surprise surgery on it, that ended in me telling my life story to a nurse and insulting a pharmaceutical representative under the influence of heavy narcotics. I think the punctuation in that last sentence was a little weird. Incorrect comma usage means that I should go watch "David Tutera's My Fair Wedding" and eat bunny crackers and talk to my girlfriend's roommates.

The hospital was a pretty happening place. As is the way of such things, I was assigned seating right next to the psych ward, where a particularly unsettled gentleman had just escaped. In spite of my pain haze, I was able to deduce this because:

a) Two large black-suited guards (male and female... breaking glass ceilings!!) were guarding every entrance.

b) A guy was living the dream, wheeling at about 25mph down the long ER entry hall shouting "FRESH AIR! FRESH AIR!" Nurses and doctors and gender-blind security guards raced to stop him, but a small part of me wanted him to fly free. It was a little bit like Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.

I'm lost to the morphine, guys. Catch you after dinner.

Sometimes...

2010-10-20T13:32:00.001-07:00

... You're having one of those weeks where people keep expecting you to know how to do things. Hard things.

... You're housesitting for somebody, and that looks an awful lot like figuring out exactly which bodhisattva needs to be invoked to bring about a timely reincarnation of a dead potted plant.

... You need to find a place to live in 3 days or less.

Sometimes all these things happen at once. And then your grandma calls and asks your sister if you're gay.

Sometimes all these things happen, and you want to bake yourself a chocolate chess pie and live in the truth of its buttery chocolateness.

A Place to Lay our Lazy Gay Heads.

2010-10-18T11:44:00.000-07:00

Fellow Sapphic Allison and I have commenced the search to find the perfect apartment to move into in seven days or less. We have a budget of spare change because surprisingly, being a blogger and part-time barista doesn't really pay that well, and we live in one of the most expensive cities in North America.

I wasn't really sure what to write, so I decided to check out the "SEEKING ROOMMATES" page of Craigslist for some guidance. Thankfully, there were some good examples.

I found a great one posted at 2 AM last night. The time stamp makes it that much better.

companiom

companion in exchange for a room. do you need a bright, cheery, female companion?

*Note: Punctuation appears to have been added today at noon.

$1 *****Live in Girl Friend anyone?***** (Upper East Side)

25 yr old sbf seeks swm. Prefer Manhattan - ues/midtown. Very clean and respectful, will have the house very clean and keep u very happy... Wink wink. Please write fr more info/pics. Serious inquiries only. Would like to move in asap. Thanks.

These folks are our competition on the Roommate Market. You'd think it would be like shooting fish in a bucket. You'd think it would be easy for two sane, well-adjusted young women to find both a roommate and an apartment in an acceptable ghetto.

Read our ad and decide for yourself:

TWO YOUNG PROFESSIONALS SEEKING ROOMMATES, HOUSING

DRAFT 1:

We are two clean, non-smoking young professionals in our early 20's looking for a roommate (or two) who want to pay between $500-600 a month for rent. We are recent college graduates working in the technology industry, and our ideal roommate would be a clean, quiet non-partier. Queer friendly is a must. No pets.

We're pretty fun people. My idea of a great night is a piping hot cup of English Breakfast and some Settlers of Catan, and Allison cultivates small potted plants. Send us an email and tell us a little bit more about yourself!

I was just about to post our ad when I decided last-minute to run it through Google Translate.

Thank god I did. I got the following results:

This freaked me out sufficiently. I realized that I had to be Much. More. Specific. in our next ad.

TWO YOUNG PROFESSIONALS SEEKING ROOMMATES, HOUSING

DRAFT 2:

We are two non-smoking young professionals in our early 20's who eat glass ceilings for breakfast. We dare to stay off drugs and alcohol. We are looking for a roommate (or two) who respects the sacred feminine and was ideally a male Women and Gender Studies major. We are highly educated norms-defiers working in a male-dominated industry, and we crush testicles for mere sport. Our ideal roommate would be obsessively clean and highly deferential in all matters. Queer friendliness will be put to the test. Homosexual men will pass to the next round, as will straight men with long hair and anybody who has a gay sister. Pets will be eaten.

We're pretty fun people. My idea of a great night is brushing my leg hair and polishing my clogs, and Allison paints with menstrual blood. Send us an email and tell us a little bit more about yourself!

Wish us luck, friends.

Poem

2010-10-14T11:12:00.001-07:00

When life is uncertain,

The future, unclear.

When you wonder if

Your dreams will disappear.

When your life is a question

The answer is tears.

When there's tea in your cup

Where there should have been beer.

When hope seems so distant

And things don't seem fair

And all that you've wished for

Might vanish in air.

There's something that's growing

Hidden from the light.

It even keeps growing

In the dead of night.

This something's inside you

It's always in there.

Even when your heart

Is plagued by despair.

It's something that's wonderful,

Beautiful, Strong.

It's something society

Tells you is wrong.

But keep your chin up!

Throw your hands in the air

No treasure is greater

Than long armpit hair.

You grew it! You did it!

The places you went!

When you lift your arms

People hover 'round vents!

So comb it and braid it

And tell it you care

Cause there's nothing more precious

Than great armpit hair.

Happy National Coming Out Day

2010-10-12T07:53:00.000-07:00

Help Wanted: Unpaid Interns

2010-10-08T12:21:00.001-07:00

Lazy Gay News, the internet's leading resource for breaking stories on America's unrepentant homosexual population, is thrilled to announce the creation of an exciting new internship position for Fall/Winter 2010.

Seeking applicants available for 40+ hours per week. These internships are unpaid. College credit is available according to employer's whim.

Features Intern - Are you a bright, self-starting, comely college student looking for an employer that recognizes and appreciates these qualities? Lazy Gay News is looking for that shapely someone to help us dig a little deeper on some projects that have been sitting on the back burner. Below are just a few of the many projects you'll be pursuing:

The McCarthy Project - A great opportunity to really sink your teeth into investigative journalism. You'll be opening my neighbor's mail, looking in through her window, and investigating her shoe rack to see if she is, as suspected, a homosexual. I've already done some preliminary research into the kind of car she drives, (Prius) but I need somebody to pick up where I left off. This is a great opportunity for somebody with a lot of drive, motivation, and a personality disorder.

The Chattanooga Border Dispute - You'll be headed down to Dixie on a no-expenses paid trip to get to the heart of the Tennessee/Georgia border dispute. There's a two mile portion of river that's been the subject of much legislative and combative debate in the past two years. I want Tennessee to win, so since I'm in Massachusetts, you'll be enforcing my own personal brand of justice against those peach eating bastards. This is for the college intern who wants a research experience that is a little less science lab and a little more rural meth lab.

In addition to doing full-time research, you'll be mastering administrative tasks, such as filling empty staplers, adding advanced computer techniques to your resume as you teach me how to use my printer, and gain valuable workplace experiences you'll never be able to get anywhere else.

Because of the high level of competence required for these tasks, Lazy Gay News regrets that any applicants whose resume cites experience less than ten years will not be answered. They will be collected, printed, then used as tinder for a fire built by my Chimney Sweep Post-Doctoral Fellow because there's a nasty little draft that comes into the apartment around October and I get chilly.

Homesters and the Gentrification Examination

2010-09-29T13:21:00.000-07:00

I'm in an area of New England known as HARVARD Square. It's pretty famous. You get a lot of tourists from assorted countries who like to rub a statue for good luck that gets peed on weekly by the 250,000 college students here in Boston. There was this one night with a ton of popcorn, a fifth of gin, a park bench and-well, long story short, I think I've peed on it too.

HARVARD Square is so named for the acronym,

"Hipsters Are Really Very Avid Readers, Douchebags."

The square is named after the reeking masses of plaid, stud, and leather clad youth (and I use the word "youth" generously to include the folks pushing 35 who are really too old for this stuff.) who have waxed mustaches and witty signs about how hungry and poor they are. Both the hipsters and their dogs wear bandannas. In addition to the statue that smells like cat pee and the hipsters with "homeless" signs written in iambic pentameter, there's also a school in HARVARD Square.*

*Cambridge Latin.

The signs are written on cardboard boxes and say things like, "TRYING TO GET HOME TO CONNECTICUT, GIVE TEN CENTS AND GET A FREE BUDDHIST MANTRA." Or the ever-popular, "WE ARE NINJAS. PLEASE GIVE WHAT YOU CAN."

I call them Homesters. Homeless Hipsters. They like to congregate outside of the subway exit, leer at commuters, deface advertisements because it's counter-culture, dance to no music, and throw their own personal Burning Man in front of Au Bon Pain.

From what I can tell, the point is to appear terribly insane and wildly unpredictable, as though I've cast off the bonds of modern society and WHO KNOWS WHAT I'LL DO NEXT?* If it was me, I wouldn't go wasting all that white male privilege earning fifteen cents an hour playing John Dylan songs on the tam-tams. I'd go find a job where they hire me because my whiteness makes me seem trustworthy and educated, and then enjoy earning more money than equally qualified women.

*Usually "what I'll do next" includes playing a ukulele and getting thrown out of Whole Foods.

Despite the fact that these beautiful young drifters with seashells woven into their Anglo-Saxon dreads give actual homelessness a gentrified bad name, I have a hard time hating them entirely. They are the flip side of the coin... The antithesis to their yuppie cousins who are taking the year off between Andover and Yale to play waiter in a foreign country purely for the novelty's sake.

So... Which one are you?

GENTRIFICATION EXAMINATION

The night I met my first college roommate at Vassar, I...

a) Realized that I didn't know nearly enough about Jewish people and devoted the next ten years of my life to ending Apartheid. It may already be over. I'll have to check on Wikipedia. College is amazing.

b) Tried to cry softly in the arms of my roommate. Came to the jarring realization that entitled assholes at this elitist college aren't comfortable with one strange man crying in the warm embrace of another strange man, sharing some feelings. Fuck this shit, I'm transferring to Bard.

My final Photography 101 Portfolio looked like...

a) Lamp posts, covered in softly melting snow. Time is so transient.

b) Lamp posts, covered in softly melting snow. Flipped upside-down to represent cocaine.

After graduating and obtaining my Bachelor's Degree, I...

a) Seek to uncover the linguistic nuances in the three European languages in which I have just gained proficiency through extensive travels on the continent. I will seek to understand the European Common Man by picking up waitressing jobs, perhaps selling fresh-baked French pain on a street corner in Marseilles, and will find my place in this wide world. By working these jobs that are obviously beneath me and my mighty intellect, I will come to understand the common man.

Translation: I'm going to bum around and make sure that people in nine different countries know how much smarter I am than them. It's my big chance to make sure that an entire continent knows what a bright future I have. Me.

b) I spent two weeks photo-documenting a para-military cult in Southern Maine who say we're raping the Earth. I'm living zero-carbon right now, and have cleansed my body eating leftover produce from grocery stores. I only accept food that is given to me freely. I'm hungry and broke, and plan on making my way to San Francisco collecting postage stamps along the way. I'll only take free food if it's organic. My life is one song.

Translation: I'm going to bum around because using my B.F.A. in Photography to take wedding portraits is a sacrilege against the art. I'm going to truly understand the poor and broken and downtrodden in our country, and make a mockery of their condition by making ironic signs that prominently display my education. My life is a beautiful nightmare.

MOSTLY A'S: Pack your bags, you're headed to Budapest!

MOSTLY B'S: Find some vintage leather, you're headed to Harvard Square!

Exiting the Closet Ass-Backwards

2010-09-28T09:19:00.001-07:00

This has been a REALLY hot topic among a lot of my gay friends. We're getting to that point where the first "wave" of people out of college are getting married. They're the people who have been together for several years, the ones who were always adorable and discreet... the ones whose stability was your aspiration when you were binge drinking in college and having sex with strangers... You know. The ones whose bridal showers you're currently planning.

Here's how straight people typically get engaged. The groom-to-be pays a visit to the bride's parents and asks their permission in a tradition that "people have always done." The happy couple then typically has dinner with each others' families, the bride goes out with her mother and makes a registry, and so on and so forth.

For queer people, it goes a little something like this...

"Mom, Dad... I have some news!"

"I'm getting married!"

"I have actually been seeing someone..."

"...Five years, actually, it--"

"Merely as a point of interest, I am, actually, gay."

I cringe when I imagine the ice-cold meeting between two sets of parents who learned merely days prior that their children were gay for each other. It's literally enough to make the engaged homosexual want to run away to Iceland and send back a postcard from a safe distance.

SURPRISE! Iceland seems like a safe neutral ground between "Our daughter? She's still single!" to "Aunt Jessica and Aunt Sarah live together in Ohio. They're kind of like roommates."

Ugh. The whole thing bothers me. Why is it that it's totally acceptable (and LEGAL) for people to get engaged after knowing each other two weeks, and yet people can be together for years and it's "shocking," "risque" and um... "illegal?" My favorite is that gay marriage "highly sexual and promotes licentiousness."

Ah yes, sexy, sexy marriage. Nothing takes a hot one night stand to the next level more than shouting "LET'S GET MARRIED!"

There's a reason people don't have sex before marriage. It's not because sex outside of marriage is adultery. It's because meeting the in-laws, arguing with the caterers, trying to drop ten pounds to fit into that dress, and firing and rehiring the same photographer is the least sexual thing on the planet. It's only slightly more sexual than ordering from the Coldwater Creek catalogue.

It's something you only go through with if you're pretty fucking sure you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody who, at one point in time, may see you poop. You have to be sure you're okay with that. And that's not a gay-or-straight thing. That's a human thing.

But anti-marriage activists don't want you to think like that. They want you to think that there's nothing scarier than two dudes getting married. Sure it's all "I'm going to keel over dead if our florist uses one more damn carnation" today, but tomorrow it's "I'm going to keel over dead if the preacher doesn't let us get married in assless chaps."

A little less, "We're trying to come up with a way to incorporate Curly, our miniature schnauzer into the service." A little more, "We're getting married in a Satanic lodge with a naked priestess named Chastity reading our vows to the Dark Lord. There will be children in attendance."

Incidentally, it'll look a lot like Delaware Republican candidate Christine O'Donnell's first date.

Follow-Up

2010-09-24T13:30:00.000-07:00

I went to a Renaissance Faire.

Gay people loved it.

Wisdom

2010-09-24T06:41:00.000-07:00

Last night as I was walking home, my girlfriend looked at me under the light of the full moon and tilted her head.

My ego prepared itself for some Sapphic outpouring of praise of my beauty in the pale moonlight. I fluffed my hair under one shoulder and gave my most winning smile in preparation for hearing how great I am. She leaned closer and whispered:

"You know, in about six months, you're going to be officially old."

So rather than go home and lay awake wondering if the soft September moonlight gives me cankles, I decided to pass along some sage advice from an old soul. I've divided the advice into three sections, representing both the three stages of the sacred feminine, as well as the three groups of Wise People that I know.

Because I grew up with an entire string section as my godparents, I got some pretty bizarre advice from the adults in my life. So to the adult musicians reading this blog, it's because of you that I've never smoked British Columbian marijuana before playing a bat mitzvah gig. Thank you.

MUSICIANS

-Don't date men from Texas.

-Don't learn Latin.

-Don't drive out of state to visit somebody unless you know what city they live in. (Thanks, Mom.)

-Wherever you go, whatever you do, make sure somebody's feeding you.

-Don't eat pot brownies and attend the symphony. (Note: I wish I was making this up.)

ASIAN MOTHERS

-Don't sit on the ground. You'll freeze your ovaries off and you'll never have babies.

-If you're over fifty and you still haven't married, you should find religion.

-Don't have sex before marriage. You think they won't care... but they will.

-Enjoy tight shirts while your stomach is still flat. (This was accompanied by a pat on the belly by a smiling 78 year old lady...)

-It's before noon. Put some shoes on or you'll freeze your kidneys off.

Most of the advice I've received from Asian Mothers has concerned the freezing of internal organs.

FOLLOWERS OF THE JEWISH FAITH

-Aren't you cold? Where's that sweater I bought you? It was a lovely sweater? What, you didn't like it?

-Eat your smoked salmon.

-Eat those capers, too.

-Here, take some more.

-Are you worried you're fat? Did some boy tell you you were fat? What, is this some magazine thing? What a load of michegas. A man likes a woman with something to hold on to when the lights are out, I'll tell you--

-Stop rubbing your eyes or when you get to my age, you'll look like a rotten grape.

The last piece of advice so deeply traumatized met that I haven't used eye makeup remover in three months.

Coming Out of the Coffin: The Allison Tapes

2010-09-20T09:40:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time at the best upscale ladies' clothing shop in the world, a coworker of mine ran in breathlessly, shopping bags in hand, to tell us that unicorns were real.

It was that kind of store.

That led to a delicate conversation between my boss and my coworker concerning the capricious nature of truth on the internet.

Which, after much insistence and frantic gesticulation on the part of my coworker, compelled us to watch the video in question on YouTube.

At which time we were forced to admit that a deer with a scalp mutation was, in fact, a real unicorn.

In our search for the Real Unicorn, we stumbled across a myriad of message boards dedicated to the believers of the supernatural.

One in particular shone like a star in the night.

REAL VAMPIRE WEBSITE (dot) NET: ...okay, there's so much crazy here that I'm having trouble finding an appropriate section to quote. This site is notable not only for general cray-cray, but for its wild use of statistics and fast-and-loose approach to biology.

LGN Presents: VAMPIRE WEBSITE'S Guide to Totally Awesome Statistics!

-"To give an idea this is the point where everyone believes in full confidence that they are one, that is as in the group called the "vampire community" Their delusions are fed by others in that this group is falsely convinced that they are real vampires as well (which by my count is about 98% of them)"

-"I've met about 3 out of 5 of the oldest strongest living real vampires today and have learned more than a lot will ever imagine." And coincidentally, all of them went to my high school.

-"After all if you don't spot yourself as a real vampire then you aren't a real vampire. All of the traits below are accurate for at least 95% of the real vampire population. Most are 100% and, assuming that you are a real vampire, the fact that these traits are accurate for you may shock you."

-"Did your dad disappear from your life while you were at a young age? (NOTE: 52% of vampires out of a large range of vampires have answered yes to this question.")

-"A legitimate Vampire is able to safely digest more than 600% of the daily recommended amount of iron"

After the website made an incredibly offensive (or possibly awesome) comparison to coming out of the closet, I realized that lesbians were vampires, and I gave the Real Vampire Quiz to Allison to see how she tested. Here are the results. They are 95% accurate for 100% of real vampires.

Real Vampires Quiz, as seen on VampireWebsite.net : Allison's Responses are in red.

1. Do you have unusually pale skin? You don't have to be white to be pale. If yes then cook up one or two (depending on the size) medium rare steaks (the best way to do this) If, by the time you’re done enjoying the second one, you have a new pinkish color throughout your body that you haven’t had in a while, read no farther; you are a real vampire. Humans can’t digest blood let alone get color from it, real vampires do.

NOTE: The extra work involved in trying to eat medium rare or rare meat can cause a temporary pink color to the skin which is otherwise known as being flushed. Temporarily being flushed is not the color that is being referred to when a vampire gets color from the blood in the steak. It takes a lot less human blood than animal blood to get the same effect but animal blood is way easier to get.) If you were white before and still are you should see a doctor. Odds are you aren't a real vampire, you’re just malnourished, and they can help.
Yes.

Are you a naturally strong magic/energy user self-taught or self-realized?
I feel like I’m really self-taught. I’m medium-rare.

As a kid, were you the strongest, smartest, or quickest kid in the class, and at around 16 years of age maybe all 3?
Strongest and fastest. Aged 16 stronger and faster. But still no smarter.

Did your dad disappear from your life while you were at a young age? (NOTE: 52% of vampires out of a large range of vampires have answered yes to this question. This includes people who believe they are real vampires however may not really be one.) Click for one theory on how this is vampire related: The Truth about the ''Vampire Community'' or Click here to give a response.
No, but I felt he was very distant. (Note: Allison was sitting next to her dad on a road trip when she answered this question. Sarcasm becomes her.)

Do people often tell you that you look very young for your age, or that they would have never guessed how old you are?
I just got carded at an R rated movie.

Are you extremely energetic at night but around the time the sun comes up become extremely tired?
I’m in the car with my dad, but feel free to take that where you need to take it.

Are you a slightly quicker healer than most, if not a much quicker healer?
No
Do you have an unusually high tolerance to alcohol and other poisons/toxins?
That’s called college.

Do you rarely get sick, or when you get sick does your body recovers quicker than most people
Between Becky and my partner I have a pretty fucked up sample.

Are your six senses more enhanced than most other peoples, i.e. vision, hearing, touch, smell, taste, and intuition?
Probably not.

Do you tend to NOT be surprised or scared by the typical sudden loud noise in a movie or things like that because you sensed it coming?
That’s called Wellesley. Always expecting something insane to happen.

Do you tend to get a high from human blood? When drinking someone’s blood do you tend to find yourself being able to do something that they could do (that you couldn't do) about 2 weeks after drinking it?
Lesbian joke

Are your nails clear like glass, yet very strong?
Hard to tell, I keep them very short

Is your bedroom the coldest and darkest room in the house?
Yes, it’s like a cave. I painted it dark purple when I was 13

Can you hear a whisper from across a room?
No.

Is there a dark colored ring around the iris (color part) of your eyes? All real vampires have this, however not everyone that has it is a real vampire.
They’re black like the night.

"What Did One Lesbian Vampire Say to the Other?"

2010-09-17T21:08:00.000-07:00

"See you next month!"

Ok, so that's the second-worst lesbian joke in existence. And I always thought that it was funny (and I use that word oh so lightly) solely because of the gross-out, ew-they're-drinking-menstrual-blood factor. Little did I know on first hearing the joke that there is actually a long history of lesbian vampirism in pop culture. From Samuel Taylor Coleridge's 1816 poem Christabel to True Blood (or to Twilight or The Vampire Diaries or...), vampirism has long been a metaphor for sexual activity. Particularly, vampirism has been used to explore women's sexual activity, which has been a taboo topic for at least as long as blood-sucking demons have been. In some ways, it makes sense that women's homosexuality--an especially taboo topic--was written about through the actions of otherworldly monsters preying on beautiful young women. Once a few proud lesbian vampire foremothers paved the way, the trope took off and has since been beaten like an undead horse in media as diverse as anime, comic books, television, literature, and film. Still, nothing of the fictional world of lesbian vampires could have prepared me for the stunning discovery made by one man with a Youtube account:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Rachel Maddow is a lesbian vampire. She doesn't exactly seem to fit the type to me, but that guy really looked like he knew what he was talking about.

All of this brings me to an announcement and a request. First, thanks to some hard-hitting journalism by fellow Lazy Gay Newser Becky (interview to follow), I'm officially coming out as a lesbian vampire. It wasn't a difficult choice for me to decide to follow the vampiric lesbian lifestyle; I merely traded the soul I wasn't planning on using anyway for the chance at an eternity in which to seduce to Rachel Maddow. All I ask of you, the modern-day right wing media watchdogs, the teenage boy anime viewers, the 1970s exploitation film makers, is to let me know whether I'm supposed to butch it up or be oddly adorable or go for the whole sexy high femme routine when I am sucking people's blood. Because like our counterparts among the living, you guys don't seem to agree on much about what a lesbian vampire is like, other than that we exist somewhere between your fantasies and your fears, and you seem to have no idea of what we do in bed.

They Should Screen For "Life Idiocy" In Higher Education

2010-09-17T13:22:00.000-07:00

Listening to the conversation of the two Harvard students sitting next to me is kind of like looking into the void. I gaze into this yawning cavern of stupidity and can see infinity.

A few highlights:

"Isn't your roommate gay? Isn't it kind of shitty that you and the other roommates can't make gay jokes now? You have to like, censor yourselves?"

"Yeah, we thought he was anti-Semetic cause he's an Arab, but it turns out he's gay." (Note: This was said without a trace of sarcasm. You should have seen it in the context of the original conversation. I almost shit myself.)

"I like, kind of hung out with a celebrity last week. We were like, hiking or whatever."

"Isn't he like... kind of a rapist?"

I bet if I put my ear to their faces, I could hear the ocean.

My Dad's Republican Mail: Sharron Angle

2010-09-17T13:17:00.000-07:00

Okay, so first I was amped by the side-ripping envelope:

I had no idea what Sharron Angle had in store for me next...

A (FAUX)ST - IT NOTE!!!!

How INCREDIBLE is this fake post-it note?? It's not actually a Post-It Note... This is yellow paper, cut to Post-It Size, printed with a fake hand-written note, and then glued to the envelope.

Solid.

WEDDING SEASON!!!! PRE-GAMING.

2010-09-15T13:07:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year again. Wedding season. You all may be thinking "Wait, in Becky's mind, every season is wedding season!" And you would be right.

These are the four seasons of weddings:

SPRING: When 90 percent of weddings happen. Most Southerners have every weekend April-June booked with a different wedding or shower. Incidentally, this is when most natural disasters happen. Proof that God hates matrimony.

SUMMER: When 90 percent of the weddings that you, personally will be invited to occur. They will be outdoors. They will be in tropical or arid desert climates. They will be black tie. There might be a lake of fire. In fact, you will probably be invited to a noon wedding in a deforested parking lot in Shrieveport, Louisiana where the bouquets are made of poisonous succulents and you're not allowed to die before the cocktail hour.

FALL: When wedding planning begins for the Spring season. Like the normal fashion world, Fall is the time of Wedding Fashion Week, when the designers debut their new collections for the next year. Wedding magazines are rarely able to scare up cute fall weddings for their spreads (not that it's not possible because it TOTALLY is... they're just not creative at all), so they recycle old images of cakes. Or... images of old cakes. (Side note on old cakes: I work next door to a cupcake bakery where the girls haven't quite figured out how to hit the 8'x12' garbage bin. When you walk into the alley, there are rows of cupcakes that have come to resembled deep-woods fungi. It's extraordinary. I feel like I'm in an enchanted forest.)

WINTER: When the most odd-ball weddings are featured. This is one of my favorite seasons to look at wedding magazines, because the brides who have December weddings frequently have a little extra budget from having an off-season wedding that they apply in tremendously creative ways.

I am ending this post now. This post is the chaser to the next post. It's a short post. Nash, I hope you're reading this, lol. Brevity is the soul of wit.

I Went To A Gay Wedding

2010-09-13T13:06:00.000-07:00

This weekend, I had the pleasure of being arm candy at My First Gay Wedding. It was beautiful and moving, and I was again reminded how lucky I am to live in a state where gay marriage is legal.

The wedding was between two academics, so basically the whole of Northeastern lesbian feminist scholarly thought was in attendance. And let me tell y'all... there were a truly mind-boggling number of Sensible Black Shoes in attendance.

I've come to notice that there's nothing that lesbians ages 35-70 love more than sensible black shoes. I was visiting a friend who is a lesbian academic, and I looked at the shoe rack in her foyer and HOLY CRAP.

The sensible black shoe is a shoe that could be classified as "casual-formal," weighs about two pounds per foot, and looks like the love child of a clog and a pool floatie.

It's funny... you can take the cleverest women in the Northern Hemisphere, women who can draw socio-political and anthropological parallels between the consumption of Swedish Fish and the war in Iraq, women who can calculate the square root of -1 and have four PhD's, and they will still be utterly convinced that nobody can tell they're wearing sneakers to a baptism. They think they're being totally sneaky.

I don't want to offend anybody, but scholarly lesbians... the jig is up. Those shoes could only be considered formal if you're going black tie rock climbing. The folks who are telling you that those vegan rubber moccasins go from creek wading to business casual put the "crock" in croccasins.

The Spring Step: Black Python and Lycra

A plague on both your houses.

And finally, a montage...

Renaissance Faires.

2010-09-01T11:20:00.000-07:00

It's hotter than hell in this coffee shop I'm in so I'll keep it brief, but I thought this topic was appropriate for Lazy Gay News because gay people fucking die over Renaissance Faires. I'm not joking. Back home in Tennessee, the only place you'd see more gay people out en masse than the club, a GSA or a public park bathroom after dark was the Renaissance Faire. Renaissance Faires combine something that gay people hate (wilderness) with something that gay people love (bondage).

Gay people like Renaissance Faires for the many of the same reasons that white people like Renaissance Faires. The sexism, racism, religious intolerance, and people casually observing that hey, my limbs are turning black and oozing and dropping off, I guess you just don't get ligaments and joints like you used to, are glossed over in favor of jousts and six pound turkey legs wrapped in tin foil. Renaissance Faires hearken back to a day when being a white person of British descent wasn't synonymous with driving a late 90's sedan that always smells like cat food despite never owning a cat, and having a career as a dental assistant. They didn't have dental assistants in the Glorious Middle Ages.*

*They didn't have teeth.

They also like Renaissance Faires for some specifically and exclusively Gay reasons. It's a funny conundrum, because I think in actual Renaissance times, homosexuals were hung by the testicles in a public forum.* I find that 90% of the queens that I've met have been to a Renaissance Faire. So much for family fun, eh? The following are a list of the subclasses of gay people who can get behind a good Renaissance Festival:

*They may have liked this. Takes all sorts, I guess.

-Gay Best Friends -- In it for the glitter and fairy wings. I've never been to a congregation of more than twenty homosexuals when some twink didn't bust out a pair of fairy wings. This includes Prides, casual dinner parties, field days, and Democratic inaugural events. Again, if anybody strolled down the streets of 1407 England with today's high-tech airbrushed fairy wings and synthetic wolf ears, they would have been clapped in irons, exorcised, and strung out on the rack.

-Bisexuals -- Bisexuals are largely ignored on this blog. Don't worry, after today this trend will continue. I knew in my heart of hearts that bisexuals loved Renaissance Faires (but they hate labels, eschew identities, "Let's just hold hands while I show you my Deviant Art account," and so on...), but I couldn't figure out why. So I googled "bisexual renaissance festival" and got about a billion hits. I decided to research further the meaning behind this, so I asked myself where I could find the most bisexuals on the internet...

Okay. I didn't know how deep the rabbit hole went, so I'm not going to post any links. I'm at a coffee shop and everybody who can see my screen thinks I'm a freak, because the last link I clicked on took me to the myspace of a topless medieval mermaid Photoshop enthusiast interested in men, women, and Northern California. If you're curious, you're going to have to surf through all that yourselves from the privacy of your own homes.

--Me

I love Renaissance Festivals. I used to go every single year in Tennessee, making the hour drive to the country like an asphalt-paved journey back in time. I usually went with bisexuals.

The first year I was old enough to go by myself, I was in my sophomore year of high school and was still going through my painfully awkward, overweight and unfashionable period. This period pretty much lasted all through high school until I learned that you could be way more popular at a girl's school if you got a mullet and lived on parties, booze, and fast women.

I went to the Renaissance Faire with a bunch of guys from the school computer club (stop laughing, May. I'm cool now. That part of my life is behind me.), a couple of the looser wenches from my volunteer job (read: bisexuals), and a few random hangers-on who were, not a joke though GOD I wish it was, in my computer club friends' Dungeons & Dragons guild. I'm reviewing the last half of that sentence, and it legitimately makes me want to pierce my labia just to prove I'm only tangentially connected to such a bastion of dorkiness.

I was a little surprised to meet these so-called "guild members" and find that they were dressed like Rainbow Brite. Such was the early 2000's. "Punk" was still a style and emo waited for us in the not-so-distant future. And to be "punk," (a term I'm told has been revived to apply to the unwashed leather-sporting na'er-do-wells that sit stinking in Harvard Square, panhandling for spare change with witty signs and bachelors degrees from Hampshire) meant to look a little bit like Rainbow Brite, a little bit like the anthropomorphic personification of a binkie, and a lot like somebody who's totally an idiot.

I sat next to this random assortment of people in the back of my friend's minivan, and tried to discreetly adjust my boobs because I was definitely not in a full and "historically accurate" fairy costume with embroidery of flowers that I think only exist in the New World, and synthetic ribbons everywhere. By the by, once this account becomes public, I fully expect to never get any every again. I hope you were all entertained and that it was worth it. The bisexuals talked about being bisexual and how they were excited about seeing boobs (this being a New Thing because high school girls seldom dress promiscuously). When the car got quiet, they would talk about their gayness again, and how they don't like labels, but they totally kissed a girl at a party. One girl mentioned smoking pot out of something that, despite my total innocence on all matters drug and alcohol related, seemed highly impractical if not totally impossible.*

It was all very scandalous. I sometimes wonder why I, an avid and unrepentant lesbian, didn't take part in these conversations or activities. Many of these girls have gone on to become committed heterosexualists, or at least girls who date boys who like it when they make out with other girls. I think it was because I spent most of high school trying to convince myself I was into boys and it was exhausting.

*It was a clam shell. Stoner friends: Can you smoke out of this item? It seems like an odd choice, looking back. Especially because the last time there were wild clams in middle Tennessee, it was the late Triassic.

We got to the Renaissance Faire, and the testosterone roared in the blood of my male friends, combined with a heady mix of turkey juice and traces of port-o-john hand sanitizer. We walked past a man in a ring who wanted to duel with swords, and the boys had the most massive case of what I call "Situational Blue Balls" that I've ever seen. They wouldn't leave until they had challenged the man in the ring, who quite obviously let them win. To those of you asking why a sword fighter would let a customer win, you probably haven't worked in the service industry.

There were jousts; we cheered. There was novelty clothing; we purchased. There were record pollen counts and unwashed livestock; we sneezed. I went home at the end of a long day, my arms filled with all sorts of unusual and dorky hammered jewelry with semi-precious stones, purse full of kettle corn, and all the tickets, programs, and maps that my scrapbook could handle.

I didn't find out until the next day that everybody in the group had dropped acid except for me.

The Only Thing I Want This Fall

2010-08-26T13:47:00.000-07:00

Excluding things like world peace and equal rights and you know, to be employed, the only thing I want this fall is a leather motorcycle jacket. Kind of like this one:

I, of course, would look much more badass in such a jacket, but then again I would not be pairing it with a silk dress. There is, however, one major issue with this desire. (Actually, there are several. First, I'm morally opposed to wearing leather and second, I'm broke. But these are comparatively small obstacles on the road to awesome jackets.) Is it possible to own, wear, and cherish such a garment without being a bad dyke stereotype? Have we come far enough from the days when lady gays were the mulleted height of bad taste to once again embrace the asymmetrical zip leather motorcycle jacket as an acceptable wardrobe staple? Inquiring queers want to know!

Live Blog: Passing My Kidney Stone

2010-08-25T22:07:00.000-07:00

Lazy Gays,

I'm afraid I've been absent of late. The reason? I'm totally blazed right now on pain killers because I'm passing a kidney stone.

I was on my way to the doctor's for what I thought was a fairly straightforward UTI, when all of the sudden I started getting shooting pains in my side in the subway. I got into a cab and asked him to take me to the doctors when I started screaming and threw up. By the time I got to the ER, I was in so much pain I couldn't even tell the nurse my name and she had to get it off my driver's license.

I have a kidney stone. I'm really out of it, so if you've gotten any cracked out phone calls from me, it's because I'm on a potent cocktail of painkilling sedatives, antibiotics, and anti emetics. I had a chat with the ER nurses about fisting, and I invented a cookie named after the second night of Kwanzaa, Kujichaculia. It's been a long week.

I went back to the good doctors today and was told that, basically, I have until noon tomorrow to pass this thing naturally (pee it out), or they're going in after it. It's like a fucking John Wayne situation.

So I've decided to give you guys hour-by-hour play-by-plays of me passing this kidney stone. If it comes out, I'll take a picture and put it on the internet!!!

MIDNIGHT: My co-pilot who is staying the night to make sure I'm okay passes out and says go for it, and that she'll read it in the morning. I have just finished my dinner. Dinner was:

1 Vegan Salad with Tofu Crunchy Croutons

1 Rice Cake with Hummus

1 Plum

Lots of Pain Killers

I have consumed 1 jug of water. My doctor says I need 12 of these. The macro people say 7 cups of twig tea. I'm averaging the two and doing 5 cups of water and 7 cups of tea.

1 AM: Just peed. No stone. Drank 2 mugs of tea. Feeling the pain in my side. Probably going to read some more magazines and drink more. They gave me this filter to pee into to catch the stone. I caught some grit earlier, the first time I used it. Either that means that the stone is breaking up (good) or I have a sandy vagina (bad).

1:28-1:34 AM: No stone. And I'm beginning to doubt the ability of this meager little funnel to do its one simple task in this earthly plane, which is catch a 2 mm kidney stone. It is incredibly difficult to use. I have transitioned to a naked state in hopes that this will remove a psychological barrier for the stone and encourage it to continue its journey to the world. Consuming Tea #3... or possibly #4. Also reading Lucky Magazine and deciding that I absolutely require red or pink heels.

3:47 AM: After four unsuccessful tries and one cover letter written during my rare 30 minutes every 4 hours when I'm not totally fucking nuts, no stone. I hurt all over. I am in mad pain. I hate all of this. My teeth hurt from grinding them... I am not a happy camper. I just want this fucking stone OUT OF HERE!!!!!!! I'm going to take a nap until 7... peace.

12:08 PM: It's judgement day. Thus far, no stone. Had an incredibly painful night, looked at the new Kate Spade shoes for fall and lamented that I could afford none of them, and passed out. My entire lower half is in pain. I don't know why I haven't passed this thing yet. To be honest, it damages my self esteem a little. I feel like the little engine that couldn't, when I had a 90% chance that I could.

On my way to the doctor's :(

My Sister Had A Gay Old (Or Old Gay) Time!

2010-08-22T12:58:00.000-07:00

My sister recently gave birth to the quietest baby in the history of procreation. I'm not kidding. I have no tolerance for child noise. If childhood was a soccer match, burps and giggles would warrant a yellow flag. This baby is literally silent. When the baby is in the room, you can listen very closely and hear infinity. My sister has actually forgotten the baby was in the room several times, walking to the kitchen, pausing like she was forgetting something, then after a minute being like "D'OH! BABY."

I got a phone call the other day after a particularly nasty tornado had blown through town, taking out electricity in most of the county and chucking a few cars and signs around before seeking more accommodating ground in Clarke County. There's a lot more drama in pitching a flailing cow than pitching a city bench, if you're thinking like a natural disaster.

My sister is a mellow and respectable mother of three, but she has full-body tattoos and has seen her fair share of quarantined bar toilets that have skin conditions and auto-immune diseases named in their honor. "Stall Number Three Disease." "Acute Squatting Pox" and such.

It takes a lot to cause such a woman to question herself. An ER nurse, I truly believe that had my sister been the one who treated this guy, she would have asked him if next time he would consider a carrot, and file it under "preventative medicine."

Apparently, my sister and the baby had been caught in the middle of the tornado, and the wind and hail made it impossible for her to continue on the road. Deep in the heart of the industrial district, there wasn't even the meanest gas station around under which to find shelter. The only thing that even slightly commercial was a partially boarded-up dive bar with a spray painted "TRACKS" on the wall. It being noon, she wasn't really sure it would even be open, but she pulled her car next to a few other cars in the lot, and rolled in with her baby.

"TRACKS" does not, venue location aside, refer to the high concentration of area junkies. The ten hairy, chap-clad Bears huddled around their beers and flirting with Cubs were mildly horrified at the sight of a young mother and a baby invading their den.

"You gotta get yer baby out! No babies in the bar!" Apparently this was a rule, but considering TRACKS is a bar for heavyset gay men who enjoy having sex with skinny club-hopping twinks, it was probably a pretty fresh regulation. The bartender thundered out from behind the bar, took one peek outside at the green skies and hail the size of golf balls and went from zero to Momma Bear.

"Sugar, you bunker down tight! Y'all just sit and get real comfortable." And the hostility from a fringe gay community towards a committed Breeder melted instantly into a pool of cooing, cuddling, and "Isn't she just petite?"

My sister asked me later why, despite being gay men, they weren't young, waxed, and ripped. And above all else, "Why were they so hairy?"

A Very Realistic Picture Of the Future Persecution of Christians!!

2010-08-20T10:42:00.001-07:00

Perhaps the best argument I've heard so far concerning the perils of homosexuality comes from Tim LaHaye, author of the mega-popular Christian ~~Harry Potter~~ series Left Behind.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Left Behind series, these wildly popular Christian books follow the lives of those... left behind... on Earth after the Apocalypse. For those of you unfamiliar with the Apocalypse, read a book.

If you're unsure of where to start, then sinner, there's a mini-series for you. There is the Kid's Series, and then the Political Series, which I'd like to add is itself eerily prophetic. Written during the Bush administration, it foretells wingnuts thinking President Barack Obama is the Antichrist while he was still a senator.

Then there's the Military Series for all you manly dudes who don't want to ask or tell about reading Twilight. The main character is named Sergeant Samuel Adams.

Subtle.

I've noticed that in radical right-wing mailings/TV/radio/speeches, you can usually just replace the word "Jesus" with "Founding Fathers" to seem sneaky. You're not evangelizing! It's what the Founding Fathers would have wanted! Who, by the by, were most definitely Christians.

There's the original series, which begins in a Boeing 747 in which believers disappear right out of their seats. In my head this sounds a little bit like popcorn in the microwave. Believers go to heaven...pop pop pop. And anybody who stays around too long gets burned.

I would have to say that my absolute favorite series would have to be the "Underground Zealot" Series. In the world of Left Behind, the world has been taken over by the "National Peace Organization." The government has made religion illegal and is trying to crush and stamp out unbelievers! And in a shocking plot device that has absolutely never been used, you get the following...

Guy works as agent for super evil organization. Guy thinks he's doing the right thing. Guy's good at being secret agent, enjoys it. Shocking revelation exposed only to Guy, Guy realizes he's wrong, and becomes double agent working to bring down the same organization he used to serve!

Guy's author has just rewritten Alias. This time with 12% more praise hands.

I have to go do dishes now, but this post will become relevant when I update next.

Lady's Foods for Ladies

2010-08-19T10:45:00.001-07:00

Crossposted in Snackrobiotic:

Gender and Sexuality in Macrobiotics:

This article is in response to a few articles I've read lately in the Macrobiotic community that recommend foods based on some pretty bizarre labels that seem to be more rooted in sexism than in good sense.

I grew up in the South, which is one of the most strongly gendered places in America. Women are debutantes, members of body-aware sororities, and they continue to face systematic under-compensation for their work. Men are encouraged to be hyper-masculine, athletic, rugged, and emotionally stoic.

Time and culture specificity are rarely talked about in America, but must be considered when discussing sexuality and gender. Consider the case of female companionship. In the 1800's, it was considered both common and healthy for women to form such close relationships that they kissed, slept together, expressed extreme jealousy and dislike for a woman's husband, and addressed each other with terms like "darling," and "love of my life." Any woman doing this today would be considered queer as a three dollar bill.

And as far as the Greeks go? Alcibiades. Socrates. End of story.

The "feminine" way in which Alcibiades expresses submission to Socrates... the "dominating" or "masculine" characteristics exhibited in many of these same-sex female relationships of the 19th century... In my own experience traveling to Japan, members of the boy's soccer team at a boy's high school didn't blink when they were asked to put on aprons with miles of lace in their home-ec baking class.

When we start viewing women as "soft," "receptive," and "nurturing," we are not only generalizing and simplifying an entire gender based on the norms we were taught in our own culture, but we are creating heavy standards that women and men may or may not find come naturally to them.

I know women who couldn't nurture a potato to sprout in a dark pantry. Nor would I trust them with my tubers. At the same time, these women have made amazing contributions to literature, science, and music that are a product of their own unique identities.

Macrobiotic practice is deeply rooted in yin and yang, masculine and feminine energies. I have often struggled with my own place on the yin/yang, masculine/feminine spectrum. Having attended a women's college, I have observed that gender is not the same as sex. Gender is a spectrum, each of us has our own unique location on that spectrum, and it is only when we push farther than comes naturally to the individual in the yin and yang directions that we encounter resistance, emotional, and physical discomfort.

I urge my fellow macrobiotic practitioners to eschew easy gendered generalizations. Rather than slap a "single white female" on yourself as a person, find your place in the gender and sexuality spectrum and ask yourself if you are living and inhabiting that space in a way that feels natural and whole to you.

Those who have come to a macrobiotic practice after suffering from the generalized band-aids slapped on by conventional medicineshould know better than anyone that overlooking the individual in favor of a convenient label is done at the expense of everyone involved. When we try to stuff the individual into categories whose relevance and importance is decided by a time/culture specific society rather than by the body itself, we ignore all the wisdom we have gained in favor of the comfort and ease of resting among our old stereotypes.

Macrobiotic practice is not the same as fortune telling. If we create a special diet for "single unmarried women," we make several dangerous presuppositions:

-The woman wants to be married and would benefit from that condition

-There is something missing from the life of an unmarried person. Just look at that term! Un-married. As though married is the natural state and the single person is burdened with an appendage. To quote the philosopher Alanis Morissette:

"I don't want to be your other half, because I believe that one and one make two."

-The woman is passive, in need of aggressive. Why do people still think this? It blows my mind! I can't think of how many married couples I know in which the opposite tends to be true.

The moral of the story?

Just because you are a dude doesn't mean you need to go out and shoot a buffalo and eat it while the meat is still hot. Just because you are a lady doesn't mean you need to take your nutrition solely through tea cakes eaten with gloved fingers.

All things in moderation, and all things true to the unique identity of the individual.

Cause Yoooou Make Me Feeeeeel

2010-08-19T08:47:00.000-07:00

People I have been surprised to learn read this blog:

-Straight People

-Grown-Ups

-My Parents' Friends

-The Devoutly Religious

Over the last week, I've learned that this blog is followed by so many more people than I had ever imagined or hoped for when my co-bloggers and I started this thing in April. I think it's because we get one comment on the blog every solstice cycle, but I had no idea so many of you were reading Lazy Gay News. To say I'm delighted and flattered is to put it mildly. To find out that people whose opinions I value so highly count themselves among regular LGN readers is really an honor.

As readership of this blog has grown, I've confronted several unexpected conundrums... Is it possible to be "out" on the internet, but closeted in parts of your life? When people can put a face to a blog, how many vagina jokes can you responsibly make? And how real is too real? I began this blog for my friends, telling myself that I would only post things that I would say to them in person, but since the reader base has become more diverse, do the same rules still apply?

Because I'm never going to find the term "muff diver" not incredibly funny. It's like dudes and fart jokes.

I'm going to keep posting candidly because you guys deserve the uncensored gay truth of my life.

So finally, a few thanks. Thanks first and foremost to you, gentle readers. I couldn't do this without you. If I tried, it would go under the collective heading of "Egomaniacal Narcissism." Thanks also to Allison, for letting me blow up her phone at least twice a week to ask her stupid questions, and for providing some of the most hilarious moments of biting satire that this blog has seen so far. To Eddie for kindness and patience that never seem to run dry. To my siblings, Wellesley and otherwise for showing me that Gay is Okay (and in one special case: "I knew that already. I'm not an idiot. Gosh. Idiot. It was obvious. Whatever.") And finally, to my beautiful girlfriend, who makes me laugh.

--becky

p.s. the new counter on the left is a little jacked... it reads each "reload" of lazy gay news as a new hit... something i'm trying to remedy.

p.p.s. LEAVE ME SOME COMMENTS! What topics would you like to see covered? News Stories, My Professional Opinion on A Gay Topic, My Views on Deep Matters (Or Weddings), etc.

We All Know It's Going to Be An Island in 2012, Anyways...

2010-08-16T13:36:00.000-07:00

"LEAVE IT! JUST LEAVE IT!" Cried the evangelical, as he waved frantically for the other members of his party.

"IT'S NOT WORTH IT! IT'S JUST GOING TO BE AN ISLAND SOON, ANYWAYS!" He pleaded, a howling wind battering his face. "IF WE DON'T GO NOW, WE MIGHT LOSE THE WHOLE COUNTRY! YOU KNOW HOW THE JUSTICES HAVE BEEN TURNING-IAMLOOKINGATYOUMAGGIEGALLAGHER!"

But it was too late. Eyes wild, the party sank their fingers into the sinking ship that was California and with a maniacal gleam and flailing hands, produced a soggy appeal.

Right Wing Watch reports that history revisionist David Barton has been discussing the idea that perhaps anti gay groups should just cut their losses in California and run. He's worried that with the way the wind has been blowing lately, the Supreme Court might strike down the 31 amendments banning gay marriage in various states as unconstitutional.

Plus, there's that awesome theory that an earthquake striking California in 2012 will sever it neatly from the continent. I'm sure Pat Robertson will say something about how it's California's punishment for giving us plastic surgery, homosexuals, fake tanning, fast women, and doggy day spas. I wonder what's going to happen to Jersey...

By the by, I highly recommend you check out some of those "helpful links" provided by David Barton's biography. One of them manages to make Genesis 1:26 God's personal endorsement of the free market... in the middle of a document about why God doesn't want us to protect the environment. It's an interesting argument... It goes a little something like this:

And God created the world, full of animals and plants and burning sunsets and sandy beaches and pelicans that aren't buttered in BP Premium.

And then God created Man in his own image, and let him rule over the fish and the sea and the land and the livestock and genetically modified foods that contain a combination of at least two of any of the above.

And because God created Man as a steward of his creations, He imbued Man with the wisdom to take care of His Creation.

And just in case Man was confused, God made Bonsai. And trimming the Bonsai with tiny scissors and very small shovels, Man would see that sometimes the Earth needs a little trim, and that Man would always know damn well what he was doing.

And the Tiny Scissors were made Bigger, and they were called the Free Market.

And Man never made a mistake ever again. Ever.

Off With His Head!

2010-08-13T11:18:00.000-07:00

For those of you who haven't left the club since oh... about last Friday, Proposition 8 was overturned by Judge Walker!

OFF WITH HIS HEAD!

I read a fantastic analysis of this argument earlier stating that it's odd that Judge Walker was ushered into office on a wave of conservatism with the bulk of complaints about potential impartiality coming from... liberals!

Yet now, House Republicans are actually attempting to push through legislation stating that Judge Walker acted impartially going in the other direction! Of course, this legislation doesn't mean that they're bigots... They have plenty of gay friends.

I'll bet.

Friends, a word from your friend, The Only Gay in Jamaica Plain. Here's how to tell if you have lots of gay friends despite opposing gay rights:

1. If you are paying your gay friends for any of the following services...

-Hairdressing

-Cosmetology

-Wedding Planning

-Personal Styling

-Craigslist blow jobs

...you do not have lots of gay friends. You have lots of gay employees.

2. If you live next door to Gay Rick and Steve and have willfully and intentionally not burned a cross in their yard...

...you do not have lots of gay friends. You have lots of gay neighbors.

3. If you have a gay cousin...

...you do not have lots of gay friends. You have lots of gay genes. And to that end, one of your kids will probably be a gay. Congratulations!

4. If you went back to your high school reunion and smiled when you saw that Gary the theater geek was even more flaming than you remembered...

...you do not have lots of gay friends. You have lots of preconceived notions about what makes a person gay, and are probably oblivious to the fact that your best friend in high school, the homecoming queen, was trying to bang you. The theater geek is happily married to Judy and has three children.

5. If you count any of the following people on your list of "gay friends:"

-Lady Gaga

-Whoopi Goldberg

-Gavin Newsome

-Jamie Lee Curtis

...know that none of them are actually gay, celebrities you've never met don't count as friends unless you're viewing them from the perspective of a personality disorder, and you do not have lots of gay friends.

And finally, to all the House Republicans behind this bill who haven't been weeded out yet based on the criteria above...

You do not have lots of gay friends...

...if you met them on RentBoy.com. You have lots of repression and probably a couple prostitutes.

Scale for Creepers

2010-08-12T11:41:00.000-07:00

If you can see the pores on my face and we're not on public transportation, you are TOO CLOSE. If I can smell your Axe, you are TOO CLOSE. If I am at risk of catching acute polyester from the Ed Hardy boxers displayed prominently on your ass, you guessed it, TOO CLOSE.

If you lean in and start choking on my hairspray, know that Southern women excrete it as a method of defense like Bible-thumping skunks when a creep is TOO CLOSE.

I'm probably not going to kick your ass. Because I think that's a gang tattoo on your forearm. But you can be damn sure I'm going to tell on my elitist feminist blog on you!!

In case you had any questions about where you fall in my Scale for Creepers, here is a diagram:

My personal favorite is "The Casual Conversationalist." Let me say right now that there's a difference between a "Nice Guy" and... an actual nice guy.

You can identify the Casual Conversationalist because they point out some totally obvious truth while looking at you~~r rack~~ with lusty eyes that say "I haven't talked to a girl in RL since the last World of Warcraft update. Your long legs remind me of my ex-girlfriend, the night elf." Or, alternately, and creepier but actually more common, these are the balding 40+ year-old men who have a fetish for young women riding the subway and think that Tommy Bahama shirts makes them sexual napalm to the 25 and under crowd.

A little advice to you, Casual Conversationalist. You have probably bragged to your friends ~~in your superior status as Guild Leader~~ that you have figured out a way to beat the system and all those good-looking frat boy jocks by talking to girls to make them think you're sensitive, thus luring them into your bed. Pretend to care about their silly little opinions, don't listen, but nod and smile so they think you're paying attention, all the while you're sealing the deal. Make them think you're the nice guy, and they'll ignore all those assholes and ALL TEH SEX IN THE WORLD WILL BE YOUUUURSSSS AHAHAHAHA!!!

Very slick. Except that I'm not an idiot. When I'm wearing a tight skirt and you smile and try to start a conversation about the fact that we're both riding the subway --thank you Captain Obvious, I had no idea that's why the ground was moving so fast-- it's not hard to decipher your brilliant scheme. I can program in 7 languages and translate monastic writings from medieval Latin. When a crackhead gets on the 32 bus at noon and tries to hit the driver and you respond with "Boy, how about that lady, huh?" while staring at my chest, it doesn't take a consultation of the 7th century writings of the Venerable Bede to figure that one out. "Actually, I really find myself coming down on the side of the crackhead."

My favorite observation of the Casual Conversation happened last week as I rode the bus home at night. As I rode the bus back to Jamaica Plains, a guy sat down next to a really pretty girl who had, based on her standard black-on-black attire, just gotten off of work at a restaurant. He started chatting her up, and I have to say, I was impressed. He used lots of "Wow!"'s and "Really?"'s, and played like a champ. I mean, if his eyes hadn't been firmly fixed on her tight pants, I would have mistaken this guy for somebody who actually was interested in her thoughts and feelings.

But remember, this is Jamaica Plains.

Just when I was about to vomit as he said "Wow, Portugal, huh? That's crazy!" She responded, "Yeah, me and my girlfriend went there last year."

This is the truly excellent conversation that followed...

"Girlfriend?"

"Yeah. I was picking her up from studying abroad. We just moved in together."

"Like a friend that's a girl?"

"No. Girlfriend."

"Like a girlfriend like, you're dating somebody?"

"A girlfriend like, I'm dating her."

"...Oh."

He got off at the next stop. Or depending on how you look at it... didn't.

An Open Letter To Gays and All Sorts.

2010-08-06T13:14:00.000-07:00

Dearest Gayes and Well Wishers,

I am very Well, and every day am Overwhelmed by all your Kind Inquiries.

Jamaica Plain is full to the Brim of All Sorts, and I have only recently been introduced to many Interesting and Enlightening statements on Shirts. I feel I know my Neighbors already! For Instance, a gentleman I saw on the bus imparted onto me that he has a Dick that Goes On for Miles!

I was also informed by a Young Ladie that it takes Fewer Licks if you Lick Longer, although I am still not sure what exactly that means, but I am Confident that my new Neighbors will enlighten me shortly. There are two young Italian Ladies who ride the bus with me and enjoy Holding Hands and Pinching Each Other. I assure you all, it is Lascivious, and No Mistake!

I miss Nashville and all of you terribly, but hope to see all of you soon. The South is Truly an Amazing Place. I think a friend I met in my new neighborhood put it Best on his Tee Shirt, which Featured an Arrow Pointing Directly Downwards and a Witty Quote Saying: "Get Down and Ride!"

I am Blessed to be living with Fellow Equestrians!! What luck!

Fondest regards,

Becky

Don't Be Fooled By The Rocks That I Got.

2010-07-26T09:55:00.000-07:00

I'm still Becky from the block.

Throw up those hands if you vote in local elections!

If you don't, you really should. You can't complain when your governor vetoes gay rights ordinances when you didn't vote for the governor.

I have a massive bro-crush on Democratic candidate for senate, Jeff Yarbro. Anybody (specifically a man) who recognizes that in a state where the majority of breadwinners in the household are women, those women are still systematically underpaid, is my hero.

The fight for women's rights is the fight for human rights.

Can I get an amen up in here?

Plus he's a handsome devil. For a good time, click here.

In other news, I look forward to seeing lame duck Mike McWherter get thumped soundly in the upcoming election. Why? He is the Democratic equivalent of the following Pokemon:

A few gems from this alleged beacon of liberalism that wants to shine his mediocrity on our fair state:

He has been quoted in an interview as having an "honest, heartfelt" opposition to adoption of children in the state of Tennessee by gay couples, stating in an interview with the Tennessean newspaper that heterosexual families are "ideal" families. Wait, wait. My bad... Apparently his spokesman misheard him (although, I tend to believe that hearing correctly is the job of a spokesman, and that they usually do it pretty well). Mike McWherter 2.0 doesn't SUPPORT a ban on gay marriage... he just prefers adoption by "loving, traditional families."

While he added something about abortion being between a woman and her doctor, McWherter stated that he was "personally opposed to abortion."

Dude, where's my Democrat?

I have an honest, heartfelt opposition to you being my next governor, Mike.

Here's the thing that really gets me. There is not a single person in this election who is running to be the voice of the women in this state. There is nobody who will speak for the gay community.

And there is a community.

...Is there a community?

Where is the outrage by Tennessee's gay community? Trans people are being beaten and murdered at alarming rates in our state. Why is nobody talking about it? Why can't we get our proverbial shit together and find a candidate who isn't afraid to take a stand for what's right?

The way I see it, at least the Republican candidates in this election have the excuse that being against gay rights is a party policy. Being a Tennessee Democrat who doesn't support gay rights doesn't make you a "maverick." It means that you're kowtowing to what you think the local, largely conservative constituency want to hear.

I think that the decisive walloping that McWherter is receiving in the polls should let him know that this isn't working. Tennessee Democratic voters have little faith. I'm voting for Bill Haslam because being told that my family isn't "ideal" by a Democrat is more than a little insulting, and frankly, I look forward to seeing him get soundly thumped in November.

Quote of the Gay

2010-07-24T09:37:00.000-07:00

Courtesy of HGTV Design Star.

Courtland and Nina are discussing how each thinks he/she is going to be eliminated...

2010-07-21T17:57:00.001-07:00

Come with me on a journey. This is a journey where anything can happen... where magic is real, and where wondrous things happen at the stroke of midnight if only you believe.

Readers, the single most effective means of overcoming political apathy is to use the word DEATH around a senior citizen. It's only slightly less fear-inspiring than the Grim Reaper making a watery appearance in their morning Cheerios.

When I first heard about the "Death Tax," my mind went immediately to the alleged ObamaCare Death Panels, made famous by Sexy Sarah. To be honest, the only reason I know the difference between the two is because I read the 60 Plus Association's letter in its entirety. The "Death Tax" definition is nestled snugly in the middle of the second page, by which point the seniors who were able to find their bifocals have taken out their checkbooks and fallen asleep.

Here was my mindset, and I can personally guarantee that this was the intent of Pat Boone.

Death + Obama + Taxes = Obamacare = Death Panels

That tan bastard.

So even though I find the use of "Death Tax" and "Death Panels" to be completely unsound (granted, I did skip my mandatory execution while living in the UK), it's important to know the difference.

Death Panels-- The general gist is that it's more expensive to treat the elderly and the infirm, so we're going to cut their care and hope that they discreetly make a smooth transition to the great unknown without too much fuss on anybody's part. Stiff upper lip, seniors.

Death Tax-- An alleged 55% tax on an individual's estate that their children and grandchildren must pay upon the individual's death. According to the 60 Plus Association, this was temporarily delayed under President W, but will go into effect again in 2011-

1/1/11 to be precise*.

*Apocalypse can be averted by a convenient minimum suggested donation of $35 check or cash.

Let's play Bingo. This week, we've replaced Richard Nixon's face with Abe Simpson. I've also changed a few of the tiles to be more geriatrically appropriate.

We were just Thomas Jefferson away from a Bingo.

My favorite new square, "Irrelevant Postal Instructions," is going to stick around forever. Check out how Republicans manage to love America and give a vote of no confidence to blue-collar postal employees in one fell swoop:

It's hard to tell on the scan, but it looks like "FIRST CLASS MAIL" has been stamped on the envelope twice, neatly jutifying why it needed to go on there three times. If you actually look closely, you'll notice that every pixel on the "stamp" is identical and that it was printed on there.

This is some Little Orphan Annie Decoder Ring business going on here.

On How I Accidentally Infiltrated An Extremist Anti-Gay Movement

2010-07-14T21:22:00.000-07:00

About a year ago, I did some writing for my church ministry group. I put it on their blog, received my hearty thanks from the good shepherds at church, and didn't think a whole lot about it after that. Don't get me wrong-- I, like so many narcissist bloggers, derive great satisfaction from reading my earlier work and basking in my own wit, but I let this one soak on the back burner while I turned my attentions elsewhere. Namely, to my big liberal lesbian blog.

Until Monday. I was trying to put a portfolio of my writing together, and thought I'd compile a list of references. I googled myself and lo and behold the heavens opened and-

Holy shit, it had been favorited on a Christian extremist website.

There are your garden variety Christian nut jobs... the ones who will listen to hellfire-and-brimstone preachers wail and cry about feminism and shut their eyes and say "Yes, Lord" with their hands in the air...

These Christians tend to freak out all my friends in Massachusetts. Friends, let your Yankee minds be easy. These folks are all "praise hands and spiritual gifts" on Sunday, but when they need their hair cut on Monday, they don't typically have too much to say to Gay Gary on the topic of lifestyle choices.

These folks are the family members that cry and send their kids to ex-gay therapy. I'm not minimizing the damage that these Christians can inflict on Harry Homosexual, but I'm just saying that there are worse animal crackers in the box.

This website... these guys are the worse animal crackers in the box. In your box of animal crackers, they're like the chupacabra.

There is a lot of talk about the homosexual agenda. My agenda has so much game that my covert lesbian writing is linked on a website whose background image is a repeating image of a six-year-old boy wearing a "REPENT SINNERS OR BURN FOREVER" tee-shirt.

I feel like the Kelis of the Secret Homosexual Agenda. I could teach you, but I'd have to figure out what exactly I've been doing right before I could calculate a rate to charge. But damn right, it's better than... yours?

I decided that, rather than bursting into tears in the middle of a Starbucks, which, in the interest of full disclosure was actually my first response, I would take my new role as Anti-Gay Extremist Extremely Seriously

Taking My New Role as Anti-Gay Extremist Extremely Seriously

I decided to see if there were any messages on this page that I could get behind. Lucky for me, there were several.

The largest sign (below the dead fetus, which freaked me out and made me thankful that I was a gay), provided the following helpful suggestions for personal reflection:

"LIED? MURDERED? STOLEN? WITCHCRAFT?"

I'm aware that to the undiscerning sinner, violations of the faith can look an awful lot like nouns instead of deep, penetrating questions. Since I have of late been appointed an authority on all things moral, I took the liberty of making a slight correction, from WITCHCRAFT to WITCHCRAFTED.

Put that little truth bomb in your pipe and smoke it.

My next favorite NounVerb (henceforth known as NERB) was "DRUGGY?" I'm pretty sure I have only heard that phrase used once, and it was on a video filmed in 1960 they showed us in the third grade where they kept referring to staying off of "dope," and none of us was sure if they meant marijuana or, as had the term had come to mean the early 1990's, black tar heroin.

The best part of this Nerb is that they use a "groovy" font when they write it. I'm not sure if the guy who designed that font intended for it to be used in the context of a Christian Extremist group that holds the mistaken belief that hippies are somehow still culturally relevant, but I like to think that somewhere out there in the Silicon Valley-Bay Area, he hopes so.

The next targets are adherents of the major world religions. The wrong major religions. And by major, I mean the ones that have 1 practitioner per billion in the area in which this group is protesting. If you can find a Jainist practitioner to insult... godspeed, brethren. Color me impressed.

In conclusion, I've come to the realization that I still have a lot to learn about being a Christian Extremist. It's not like there's a Better Homes & Garden-Variety Fundamentalists where you can get monthly tips on what kinds of plywood make the lightest full-body signage, or hear from other moms about the right age to tell your kids about late-term abortion. I'm just going to have to keep on doing what I've always done... writing articles that get completely misinterpreted and looking like a Right-Wing Extremist who is so far ahead of the game, I didn't even know I was playing.

Note: Names and details have been changed here to avoid incriminating the innocent.

The Clergy Joins the Neighborhood

2010-07-10T16:38:00.000-07:00

I've been MIA lately. Not only have I been MIA, but I've been holding a fabulous post of Allison's hostage on my email. I have no good excuse for this.

That was a lie. I have a great excuse. The Redneck finally sold his house and

I Threw A Yard Sale

If you were thinking that this image was of a woman spanking a grown man over a dish that says "Pay Day" and a pencil sharpener where the pencil is inserted up the nostril, you would have been thinking right.

We learned this week that after lowering the cost of his buttercream disaster home from $1.7 million to a cool $275,000, our white trash neighbor finally sold his home.

When the new buyers pulled up, the entire neighborhood was out in full force walking their dogs to get a peek of the new buyers. And let me tell y'all, the neighbors about died when the doors of a white van opened and a bunch of nuns in wimples filed out and lined up in the driveway.

Turns out the property was purchased by the Catholic Diocese of Greater Nashville!

The neighborhood had a collective pause, a collective "Um..." and made pervert quips in their head that they were too afraid to say out loud.

I'll keep you guys abreast of the Catholic situation. In my dream world, the new residents of this house are the kind of priests who garden a lot and bend down to whisper psalms to the smallest of God's creatures. But more likely it'll become a halfway house for rehabilitated ~~priests~~ ex-cons.

There, I got it out of my system.

We finally threw our yard sale, three to six years in the making. Among my favorite things we sold were:

--A two foot solid oak hanging medallion of the majestic bull dog, referred to by buyer as "a damn fine specimen." $1 to an Ole Miss alumni with my blessings and an emphatic "final sale." The inscription was in Flemish. When he asked what Flemish meant, my mother told him Dutch. He asked if that was a country. To his credit, Amsterdam is really more like an outdoor music festival that happened to acquire a zip code.

--A wind-up toy that hopped on little feet when you twisted the winder. Did I mention that it was a bloody severed finger? 25c to a toddler

--A playmobil horse stable sold to two different people, once by me and once by my brother. The two people had a throw down in the front yard. $5 to a single mother, $10 to a toy collector

--The verbal throw-down between my mother and quite possibly the cheapest lady alive. Our personal assistant and professional savior Aiden brought her clothes over to sell to help fund her mission trip to Southeast Asia, and I had a pretty massive pile as well. By noon we decided that a great way to get some of those velour jump-suits moving was to charge $4 to fill up a small plastic grocery bag with clothing.

Apparently one of the ladies had a loose interpretation of the phrase "fill the bag." The bag filling went beyond simple muffin top. You could say that the bag contained clothing in the same way that BP contains oil. The clothing didn't so much fill the bag as much as stuff it, rest on top of those items, and then balance precariously on top of those.

Finally my mother intervened.

"Look," she pleaded. "These clothes are being sold by a broke teenager who's going to Japan to do the Lord's work. Digging wells." Ah yes. Bringing potable water to downtown Tokyo. Bringing water to the Japanese probably requires a little less digging and a little more asking the futuristic toilets for permission. And Aiden graduated high school during the first Bush administration.

I think my truthiness has been inherited on my mother's side. My grandfather used to tell us to eat our vegetables because there were children starving in Belgium. Much like Japan.

The lady paused as her arms quivered under the massive weight of what should have rightfully been six bags of clothing. She puffed.

"Well. These clothes are for my dawwh-ter. And for my graaand-keeds. Cause their daddy, my daughter's hus-band just left them." I've italicized the accent for those of you reading this from the northeast so that you get a sense of the rhythm of a true Tennessee accent. Truthfully, the word "Well" that she used sounds like this:

Weii uhl. Tennessee English sounds vaguely Tibetan.

I had more of this post, but Blogger went down for about six hours today, effectively erasing the rest of the post. I'll wrap it up by telling y'all that I was quite chuffed to see that I made $150 off the sale, until I realized that I spent about 20 hours getting ready, making my dollars per hour less than federal minimum wage.

Headline of the Day

2010-07-07T12:45:00.000-07:00

Courtesy of Reuters:

Tired Gay Succumbs to Dix at 200 Meters

Today Hosts a Totally Straight Marriage Contest

2010-07-06T14:35:00.000-07:00

I am a wedding media fanatic. I have an encyclopedic knowledge of every craft, blossom, and china piece featured in Martha Stewart Weddings in the last five years. I often chuckle about that one time back in the Winter '08 issue when... oh, that's neither here nor there.

I've been arguing for some time now that the only way to throw a really great wedding on a budget is to do a sunrise ceremony. It thins the guest list to the people who really care and wipes out anybody on Pacific Standard Time, discourages the costly consumption of alcohol, and fosters an atmosphere of rebirth, renewal, and hot, hot grease from a full-service omelette bar.

Where did I first get it in my head that the only time to do a wedding was the crack of dawn?

BAM. Today Throws a Martha Stewart Wedding.

Legions of brides are afflicted with the notion that imitating Audrey Hepburn at their wedding takes them from district sales supervisor to American cultural attache, despite being unable to name any United States president before Reagan or after Jefferson.

I am so absolutely morally opposed to the Breakfast at Tiffany's theme because without fail these weddings are neither:

a) For breakfast

b) At Tiffany's

This is because Tiffany's had never hosted a wedding. Until Martha came. And I'm assuming cornered the store manager, pinned his arm behind his back, and modge podged his nether-regions until he graciously accepted the whole proposition.

You absolutely must click the link above and look through all the pictures. The tiny donuts! The silver trays! It's absolutely exquisite. And the "Today Show" is doing it again this year.

Gay couples need not apply.

Courtesy of Towleroad/ GLAAD:

"NBC's Today Show is taking applications for its "Modern Day Wedding Contest" through Friday, July 9th. The winning couple will be awarded a wedding to be broadcast live on the Today Show in October and an all-expense paid honeymoon. Unfortunately, the network has set up rules that deny committed gay and lesbian couples the ability to participate.

An excerpt from Today's Facebook page reads: "TODAY is throwing a modern day wedding! Whether your love blossomed over the Internet or you met the old-fashioned way, we want to hear from you!"
...
GLAAD contacted the network last week to find out why its application listed only "bride" and "groom" as options for applicants since the Today Show welcomed same-sex couples to apply to its "Hometown Wedding Contest" in years past. Good As You blog alerted us to the application problem.

NBC sent GLAAD this statement regarding the 2010 Modern Day Wedding Contest:

"For the TODAY show wedding, the couple must be able to be legally married in New York, which is where the wedding will take place."

This would be a totally valid argument... if New York didn't recognize same-sex marriage licenses awarded in other states. Which it does.

I can understand why the show would worry about couples obtaining wedding licenses from far off lands like Connecticut. With rush hour traffic like it is, the couple might not make it back in time for the wedding. ~~On horseback.~~ ~~In 1812.~~ ~~In a Noreaster.~~

I wonder what would happen if every gay hair stylist, dress designer, makeup artist, florist, event planner, and television producer stopped making straight couples' fairy tales come true?

When are we going to stop letting ourselves get slapped in the collective face? The entire wedding industry, from the florists to the magazine producers are populated by people who are unable to get married themselves.

When one of the biggest opponents of gay marriage, Rush Limbaugh has fucking Elton John as his wedding entertainment (Happy fourth marriage, Rush! Hope this one sticks...), it becomes time to draw the line. We, as the queer creative eye of America, have created the vision of marriage to which the right clings and guards so selfishly and so desperately.

It's time to cut them off, gay friends. Those who oppose gay marriage have no right to play make believe in a fairy tale created by those who they use and discard.

Dear Straights,

No more taffeta. No more Marc Jacobs. No fiddlehead ferns. No sassy gay wedding planner.

We're cutting you off.

Best,

Queers.

RuPaul's Prayer

2010-06-17T15:53:00.000-07:00

Saint Ru,

Epic be thy wigs.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done

On Earth as it is on Church Street after 3.

Grant me the strength to Shake it until I Make it,

And Deliver Me from Bitches throwing shade.

Forgive me my habitual phallic rejection

And let your Words shake the core of my foundation,

"Don't fuck it up."

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

And the sustenance to survive on tic tacs.

For thine is the queendom, now and forever more.

Can I get an amen up in here?

Discussion Questions for Prop 8 Watchers

2010-06-16T13:23:00.000-07:00

I’ll be posting a summary of the closing arguments (as well as links to some liveblogs by people lucky enough to be in San Francisco and possess press passes, for the less-lazy gays out there) later today. However, it might help serve as a refresher for everyone to take a look at the list of questions posed last week by Judge Vaughan Walker to each side of the case, as a sort of guide for preparing their closings. They are surprisingly like questions your high school literature teacher would hand out before an essay test. They’re basic, but by no means simple to answer. He even warns that this is just a sampling of possible discussion points (no need to necessarily talk about them all, but please be aware that you may see some different questions on the exam itself, so be prepared for anything). I’ll point out some highlight questions below for my dear lazy gays, but click here to see the original court document.

To the plaintiffs (the incomparable team of David Boies and Ted Olson along with an amazing crew of legal talent, with my intellectual crush, Therese Stewart, and Dennis Herrera for the plaintiff-intervenors, the City/County of San Francisco):

Were voters acting rationally if they believed the marriage ban was in the best interests of children, even if they weren’t basing this belief on pesky facts, and if so, does this have any bearing on the constitutionality of Prop 8?
How does the fact that gay relationships have only recently been legally recognized square with the claim that marriage is a fundamental right?
What data show that legal recognition of same-sex marriages reduces discrimination against gays and lesbians?
Can the court find Prop 8 to be unconstitutional without also questioning the constitutionality of the federal Defense of Marriage Act?
One of my favorites: If the evidence of the involvement of LDS, RC, and evangelical ministers shows Prop 8 to be an attempt at legislating private morality, what is the importance of this finding?

To the defendant-intervenors (who I believe, though I can’t confirm this due to a lack of cameras in the courtroom, wear matching all-black uniforms that include capes and top hats and spend much of the proceedings twirling their handlebar moustaches and tying damsels to train tracks):

What evidence shows that Prop 8 is substantially related to an important government interest?
Why should the court assume that the de-institutionalization of marriage is a negative consequence?
What evidence shows that same-sex marriage would be a drastic change to the institution of marriage?
How are queer couples different from infertile straight couples?
And again, a favorite for last: Why is legislating based on moral disapproval of ‘mos not discriminatory? What evidence shows that beliefs based in morality cannot also be discriminatory? Why shouldn’t this be deemed a violation of equal protection?

Some of the questions to the plaintiffs worry me. I feel that parenting and perceived parenting ability shouldn’t come into it at all; I think that the reasons for why the fundamental rights of gays have only recently been recognized is obvious (and Walker, as a gay man, should know them well). My hope is that Judge Walker wants all of these things to be discussed so that he can make the broadest ruling possible. In summarizing these questions though, I did notice that an abnormally large number of questions to the defendant-intervenors begin with the phrase, “What evidence shows that…” which may mean that Walker, like most sentient creatures observing the trial, was unsatisfied with the actual evidence provided by Prop 8 supporters. I’m particularly hopeful about the last question to the DIs, which may indicate that Walker is willing to rule based on equal protection under the constitution, which can serve as precedent for the same kinds of decisions in other states or in the US Supreme Court. Fingers crossed! I’m off to read some closing arguments!

Gloria Steinem And Victoria's Secret Duke It Out for my Soul

2010-06-14T13:34:00.001-07:00

I just need to say that this is my favorite photo manipulation I've ever done.

Up until yesterday, I had never forcibly ejected anybody from a dressing room before.

I work retail... I'm in the service. I know how it goes. Working retail or food service is a lot like serving in the army. You get spat at and rejected by the hostile natives you're trying to help. Last week one of our retail managers literally got a six pound riding boot thrown at her face. Like George W. Bush in Iraq. This is true life.

I try to be kind to my mall brethren. They're SEALS while I'm the National Guard. They're disarming IEDs while I pick up overturned mailboxes in Topeka, Kansas. A friend who works mall retail called me around Christmas and sobbed hysterically that she hadn't seen sunlight in four days. She wailed apologetically that they were all out of Batman sheets.

"If they could just for January..." She whimpered and blustered. "I know we'll get new stock."

She went to an Ivy League. Her spirit was broken by Williams-Sonoma Inc.

Yesterday I set out to buy some new bras and a bathing suit, and figured I'd kill two birds with one stone at Victoria's Secret.

Wrong. Wrong:

It kills me that a fake cheetah died to make that monstrosity.

Since my last bathing suit purchase, I've lost nearly 45 pounds, or 3 stones to my British readers. To those of us who watch late night weight-loss commercials, that means I should be living a life of eternal bliss.

I was approached by a well-meaning dressing room attendant who offered to fit me for a bra. "Sure," I thought. "It's been 45 lbs since my last fitting." She draped the measuring tape like it was a Christmas garland, glanced at it, and stated nonchalantly:

"34 A"

I cast her out of that dressing room like Saint Peter in the Gospel. I slammed the door of the dressing room and thrust a 36 C on. Which was too big.

At this point, Saint Steinem of Perpetual Hotness popped into my head. She told me that the size of a woman's breasts have nothing to do with her gender identity. I told Saint Steinem that with all due respect, my cousin is a Playmate and I should be entitled to at least 150 cc's of excessive cleavage.

Saint Steinem mumbled something about lace and extra padding and the patriarchy and disappeared in a puff of hemp smoke.

I don't say all this as a bitter, scorned woman who had to resort to lesbianism because she was shunned by the tribe of Men (I don't think...). I say this as a woman who gets plagued by idiot dudes whenever the flashing light goes off in their heads like LESBIANS!

So here's where I'm at:

Fuck your skinny. I am skinny. Here's the truth about skinny: The cost is a lot of hard dieting and one epic rack. I'm sorry... is it indelicate for me to discuss my boobs in public? Because in the last two months, I've had no fewer than three women, strangers, tell me how small my boobs are. Seriously? Screw you.

Boobs are a sign of female sexuality, and now that they're gone I see...

1. I'm a dyke

2. I've lost my boobs

3. I program computers and talk sex and politics.

Dude, where's my gender?

In Response to Prior Wrist Slapping...

2010-06-10T19:41:00.000-07:00

Guys, I feel awful about what's happened to the Mormon Church. I really do. As Allison posted below, because the church (was caught) donating $37,000 in unreported donations supporting Proposition 8, they've been fined an exorbitant $5,000. Keep in mind, they could have (and should have) been fined $5,000 for each offense, but to "streamline the process," only one single fee was levied. A whopping $5,000 fee.

That's like all the church collection plate contributions! On any one Sunday! At any one Mormon church! At the 8 AM early service!

$5,000 is going to be roughly the cost of one table arrangement of flowers and custom linens at my big gay wedding.

The fact that the Mormon Church is only facing legal consequences for failure to report donations rather than deeply immersing itself in an election is absolutely baffling to me.

Those of you interested in learning more about the Mormon Church's fingers in the big gay pie might consider viewing 8: The Mormon Proposition, debuting this week.

A Slap on the Wrist for the Mormon Church

2010-06-09T17:00:00.000-07:00

In a move that will surely teach the Mormon Church to mind its Ps and Qs in future political dealings, the California Fair Political Practices Commission has decided that the church should be fined $5,539 for late reporting of tens of thousands of dollars in non-monetary contributions (things like staff time) in support of Prop 8. The donations were made in the last two weeks of the November 2008 campaign season.

As a godless heathen, I am struck by the fact that churches are allowed to make direct contributions to any political campaign. Religious groups should be free to preach whatever they choose, but not to act like political action committees. I understand that for some people, religious beliefs dictate their politics and there’s no way to separate the two, but it seems that in the Prop 8 campaign, too many religious leaders were treading the murky line between preaching and campaigning. I’m afraid my views on this, as an atheist with a chip on her shoulder from a childhood of Catholicism, are probably unsophisticated. Perhaps some more religiously-inclined folk would care to weigh in?

As a big gay, I’m pissed that the fine was so pitiful. It could very well have been that last, unreported $36,928 that caused the slim majority support for Prop 8 and took back rights from gay Californians. They weren’t honest about the campaign, they won, and what they’re paying in no way makes up for what we all lost.

My Neighbor Is NOT A Responsible Firearms Keeper

2010-06-06T13:20:00.001-07:00

I can't stand it any more, guys. I have to get it off my chest. I can't handle living next door to this guy for one more second. He has three boats that seem to have run aground in the heart of suburban Nashville. I wish a shark would leap out of whatever invisible water he seems to believe we're surrounded by to swallow him whole.

If I found a partially consumed left leg in our front yard, I probably wouldn't ask any questions. His hill-folk tattoos would be a dead giveaway for identification. I wouldn't be surprised if they found tally marks commemorating his many divorces somewhere in the vicinity of his thigh tattoo of Jessica Rabbit.

Since my Southern exile, I've been privy to the details of my family's ongoing feud with... "Joe." I'm saving most of the details for my book, but I just need to get a few of these out, because I'm about three stray mating cats and two revved engines away from going down to Friedman's Army Navy Depot and getting back in touch with my roots.

I heard the first gun shot on Monday night. My brother tried to convince me that it was a firework, but when you live next door to a man with three horse trailers in various states of disrepair bleeding into your back lawn, you know what's up.

I heard the second gun shot two nights ago. Again, my brother thinks I'm imagining things.

Just to be sure, yesterday afternoon I tuned in to watch three hours of the Military Channel: "WWII Diaries." Last night, the gun went off again. I swear, that shit was like Normandy.

I am not sure what to do at this point. The last time this happened, my neighbor threatened to go to the police and Hillbilly Joe said something about how often frail old men fall down hills. I'm afraid he'll say something about how often lesbians are targeted by crazy hate mobs from Nebraska and I'll wake up in the morning with a burning cross in my yard.

Get me back to Massachusetts!

I Hate Ladies' Light Reading. Volume 1: Overcoming Personal Adversity

2010-06-05T11:09:00.000-07:00

Here in Tennessee, we have a certain Ladies' Magazine that's been boldly inspecting boutiques that no Middle Tennessee Ladies' Magazine has ever inspected recently. This is hard-hitting journalism, people. The magazine is filled with personal interest stories, to be read by the kind of ladies who are seriously concerned about things like High Fructose Corn Syrup.

The anonymous magazine features a sort of recurring column. I believe it was intended to be a free-form space for women to share their Lady Stories. It is, in fact, the same story written and rewritten by a different woman every month. Those of you who know me in the flesh know that I talk ad nauseum about this column. It goes a little something like this.

"As I stood out and looked over the _________, (Italian Foothills, new water treatment facility I built in Costa Rica, plains of sub-Saharan Africa, finish line of the marathon)...

... I couldn't believe that only five months ago, ____________ (insert tragedy)!

After overcoming _______________, _________________, struggling with ____________, and (mildly humorous and humanizing common experience), I never thought the day would come when I would finally _____________________.

Six months/nine months/one year to the date later, I made my dream come true.

The End

I call this the "Eat, Pray, Love" effect. Ladies' home journals across this great nation are getting on board with the Overcoming Personal Obstacles formula and selling a new one each month. I'm assuming that as a Lady, I'm supposed to be interested in these staggering tales of the triumph of the human spirit.

Here's the one I want to read.

Something terrible happened in my life. My struggles and obstacles can't be summed up in three clean bullet points, to be resolved in the concluding paragraph when I travel to Kenya and realize over a Serengeti sunrise that cancer really isn't that much of a huge bummer. Always look on the bright side of life! You might just snag a great shot of an elephant out the side of the Jeep to put on YouTube when you get your wireless back!

Maybe if, as Ladies, we stopped trying to stick a smile at the end of every story and got a little real, the media would realize that we're just as complicated and intelligent as men. And they would stop telling us that "Porn for Women: Men Holding Babies. Or Shoes" is supposed to be funny.

When I see a man holding a nice pair of ladies' shoes, my first response is not arousal.

My first response is to evaluate whether fighting with a queen is in any way advisable.

My Dad's Republican Bingo: Round 1

2010-06-02T12:03:00.001-07:00

From the Desk of Jerome Corsi, Ph.D.

Freedom's Defense Fund

My Dad's Republican Bingo is a new twist on an American classic board game. We take a big fat stack of My Dad's Republican Mail and search for common phrases, names, and histrionics. "Maverick Edition" coming soon!

As pictured above, a bingo chip is represented by Ronald Reagan's face.

Jerome Corsi Ph.D. didn't win, but I feel like there should be an honorable mention for having an impressive 9 chips on the board. Here are the chips:

!!! or ******* AND "Confidential/ Time Sensitive": "**CONFIDENTIAL** **TIME SENSITIVE**"

Freedom: "As the author of 'Obama Nation' I knew he was an anti-freedom wrecking ball..."

Use of Scribbles: Too many to mention... They're everywhere. There are more parentheses than on a Juvederm commercial.

Tyranny: "...our government rules without the consent of the governed. There's a word for this -- TYRANNY!"

You and I Intimacy Establishment: "You and I must fight fire with fire." "If you and I are going to get OBAMACARE REPEALED we are going to have to take care of business this NOVEMBER!" "Together you and I must do what's necessary to elect an army of pro-freedom conservatives..."

Arrogant, Nancy Pelosi: "Arrogant opportunists like Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid..."

Urgent: "...Rush back an urgent REPEAL OBAMACARE CONTRIBUTION"

And although that wraps it up for the Bingo Board of Jerome Corsi, Ph.D., I felt that he deserved an honorable mention for dropping the following truth bomb in mailboxes across this great nation:

Honorable Mention: "Leftists like Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid only understand one thing -- RAW POWER."

It Is My Great Pleasure to Bring to You...

2010-06-01T19:08:00.000-07:00

TA DA!

Let's play. Our first letter is a seemingly harmless...

I bet it's for the newspaper! I bet somebody really wants the honest, unbiased opinions of-

Oh.

The PUBLIC OPINION SURVEY: FOREIGN LANGUAGE USAGE opens with the following completely neutral, unbiased introduction to the "study."

"More and more, English is being replaced by Spanish, Vietnamese, Chinese, and other languages in America. At the state and national levels, our government is actively encouraging multilingualism by promoting foreign language usage in more and more official capacities--and refusing to declare English as the official language of the United States... It's only a matter of time before America ceases to be an "English-speaking" country." U.S. English, Inc.

I can't believe they didn't mention those damn Finnish bastards. They're just everywhere.

So we start the polling with baby steps. Tiny toes in the water.

"SHOULD ENGLISH BE THE OFFICIAL LANGUAGE OF THE UNITED STATES?"

Clearly. English is obviously the Universal Language for Everything. They even call them the United Arab Emirates. The Ivory Coast. We're naming other countries in our language. English's penis is that big.

PERHAPS I WASN'T CLEAR ENOUGH. "ARE YOU CONCERNED THAT AMERICANS ARE INCREASINGLY BEING MADE TO ADAPT TO THE LANGUAGES OF FOREIGN-LANGUAGE SPEAKERS WHO ARE IMMIGRATING HERE IN GREATER NUMBERS?"

What? They're taking my English from me and making me learn Vietnamese?! Merde!

And then the extremely scientific:

"Have you personally noticed an increased use of foreign language in Nashville over the past few years?"

Indeed. I've also noticed that it was really cold this winter so global warming isn't real, and I didn't see any polar bears when I looked to the North out my kitchen window, so they must be extinct.

Hey Gays!

2010-06-01T13:08:00.000-07:00

Here's a link to my other blog, Snackrobiotic.

I write about my life eating vegan and gluten-free foods. I also put up all the recipes I cook with each day, so for those of you who are newly independent adults, I've got cheap, easy, and healthy recipes for you!

--becky

Today, I Actually Read the Paper

2010-05-31T13:34:00.000-07:00

Usually when I flip through the paper, I'm not proud to say that I, like many Americans, ignore the news about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I don't support the way in which our military blundered into the Middle East, only to react with genuine surprise upon discovering that we inserted ourselves into a massively complex situation.

I also find it reprehensible that our military boasts its accomplishments "liberating" the women of the Middle East, while glossing over the alarming numbers of sexual assaults within our own ranks.

But today I read about a school in Afghanistan for girls. The school, having served an unbelievably impressive 2.5 million girls, was doused in poison this week, resulting in vomiting, blacking out, lung damage and hospitalizations on the part of the school's students and superintendents.

Then I read an article from the New York Times about the Marines' reluctant use of trained female soldiers to reach out to Afghani women in crisis. An excerpt below:

But team leaders say that some male Marine commanders have been reluctant to send the women on patrols, fearing either for their safety or that they will get in the way. (Women, who make up only 6 percent of the Marine Corps, are officially barred from combat branches like the infantry. In a bureaucratic side step commonly used in Iraq for women needed for jobs like bomb disposal or intelligence, the female engagement teams are added to the all-male infantry patrols.)

The women, who carry the same weapons and receive the same combat training as the men, cannot leave the bases unless the men escort them. Lt. Natalie Kronschnabel, one of the team leaders, said she had to push a Marine captain to let her team go on a five-hour patrol.

It seems that the United States Marine Corps has finally learned the value of its female service members. Once "skeptical" male Marines were forced to acknowledge that their female counterparts met the rigorous standards established by the Marines and were fully capable of performing and excelling at these missions. These women had the added ability to address the social pressures at work in Afghanistan and to begin providing aid on a deeper level.

The women of the United States Marine Corps providing these services are proving with each mission that they are able to serve their country to the capacity which they are allowed. Which oddly, for me, highlights how remarkable the Afghani school girls really are.

A thirteen year old girl, a victim of the gas attack, informed a local reporter that she told her parents she'd be back at school the next day.

These girls don't have the support and strength of the United States Military behind them. They often don't even have the support of their own family members, terrified for the safety of their daughters. Violent, militant, religious forces are dictating roles to them, and I think that it's a common point among human beings everywhere that it is always easier, safer, to go with the flow.

These Afghani young women seem to know in their hearts their own intrinsic worth. They know with a dignity and confidence that they are capable of more. This is something that takes most people a lifetime to learn, and is for most a continuous study at best.

So this Memorial Day, my thoughts go to every woman in Afghanistan and every Afghani woman across the world who are some of the most courageous women I know.

PRIDE!

2010-05-29T12:51:00.000-07:00

There's the kind of pride you get from being gay. And then there's the kind of pride you get when you are reminded that your little sister is a TOTAL BADASS.

SHE WAS ON FEMINISTING!!!!!!!

Congrats to my little sister Claire for writing an amazing article for NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia and for being an advocate without judgement for our society's most vulnerable women.

An excerpt from the article:

On May 21, the Virginian-Pilot broke a shocking story: since the fall, fetus dolls with explicit anti-choice messages have been handed out to third, fourth, and fifth grade students by a school employee at Oakwood Elementary School in Norfolk, Virginia. The Pilot cites a teacher, who wished to remain anonymous, describing the 4-inch-long pink and brown plastic dolls as “life-like” and accompanied by a card with an anti-choice message and information on fetal growth. The Pilot’s investigative reporter found that these dolls and their accompanying literature were given out to dozens of young students, as recently as last month.

Identifying the Lesbian Bride

2010-05-29T12:06:00.001-07:00

... in One Easy Step.

Edit:: Apparently I didn't read far enough.

Two Easy Steps.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell News in Five Easy Points!

2010-05-28T11:38:00.001-07:00

1. Last night, the House agreed to strap on the amendment approving the repeal of DADT to the defense bill following that big study they keep talking about, as did the Senate DADT committee.

2. In the Senate Subcomittee, Virginia Sen. Jim Webb held the distinction of being the only Democrat to vote against the motion, with some mumbo-jumbo about it being enacted so quickly that it shows a disregard for the feelings of servicemen and women. (2.5) Where was this regard when the tens of thousands of soldiers who shed blood for this country were ruthlessly dishonored and fired?

3. The Senate will debate the measure next month.

4. Even if the amendment is added to the defense spending bill and the motion is passed, there will be no immediate changes for LGBT service members. If you're looking for a good cry, click here. The last point here really got me. I have to share it here.

A service member can still be fired for saying she would like to return from Iraq to care for her dying girlfriend.

I confess guys, this one shook me. Members of our community, of the LGBT family, are shedding blood, putting their lives on hold, and are willing to make the ultimate sacrifice... and we as a nation can't spare them an ounce of compassion. It's chilling. Do we really want people in a high-stress environment doing the most difficult job in the world to sacrifice love? Love and family are the grounding forces that make an impossible job a little more possible.

5. Finally, Lt. Dan Choi begins his hunger strike for the repeal of DADT. Lt. Choi has reached out and touched the lives of so many members of the LGBT community, and has been so generous with his time and support that I feel personally connected to his struggle and his fight. Hunger strikes are dangerous things, and those lasting longer than three weeks can seriously jeopardize the health of those undertaking them.

It seems unlikely that the hunger strike will result in any immediate changes for LGBT servicemen and women due to the limited legal options available to President Obama.

Because of the limited scope of potential results from this strike, part of me questions the efficacy of this action and wonders if there are more effective means of raising awareness. I truly believe, however, that Lt. Choi and Captain James Pietrangelo are good men who understand the tragedy of Don't Ask Don't Tell, and they have my full support.

I'd like to ask my readers to keep these brave soldiers in your thoughts and prayers. That sentence is used all the time, but take a moment to imagine what that means in the context of your own life. I'm asking you to take it seriously. Hunger strikes only work when the larger community takes an interest. So give thirty seconds of your time and remember these soldiers.

Today's Little Mystery...

2010-05-26T20:18:00.001-07:00

Take a gander at a few of the comments on this thread. This is an event that's being spearheaded by Glenn Beck with assistance from the always illuminating Sarah Palin. I know that the egregious spelling and grammatical errors are enough to make you wish the red states would wither off the face of the continent like festering limbs, but hang with it. There seems to be this person, "Ali," who, while an idiot with a fast-and-loose approach to capitalization, attempts to argue that race is still... you know... a thing. About eight conservatives jump down his throat, saying that minorities... what's my favorite quote? "cant get their sh*t 2gether??? Thats because they are SO USED TO being GIVEN things, rather than ASPIRING TO THEM!"

Ah, yes. They are just not trying as hard as white people. We, as a race, are known for our reputation of being voracious try-ers and aspirers. And conquistadors.

Another gem: "don't and be like those who seek to keep us mired in the poor me history of those called "minority"....please. You are only minor in your mind if that is the case. PUSH FOR EXCELLENCE AND RISE ABOVE."

And finally, "It's you Ali and certain public figures associated with the NAACP leadership that are keeping the race card alive holding any so-called minority down in the past of this foolishness."

That being said, may I submit the following:

White Person's Schedule, Taken From My Life As a White Person

8 AM: Brush teeth. Look in mirror and practice affirmations. "I am a winner. I rise above. I push for excellence until I break a sweat. Affirmative action is for quitters."

9 AM: Call other white friends. Make sure they did their affirmations. It's personal accountability that is the key to the white man's success. And sometimes blankets with Yellow Fever.

10 AM: Push for excellence. Break a sweat.

12 PM: Eat a lunch for winners. Make sure there's meat. Vegetarian diets are for homosexuals.

1 PM: Protest at the "University," that bastion of blatant liberal bias and lies. Liberals, Lies, and Large Lesbian Extremists... Today's lesson brought to you by the letter "L."

Look at that block. It's blue. That's not a coincidence.

That's liberal bias in pre-pre-school education.

Don't even get me started on prenatal care. Why, you ask? It's about to get chilling:

How many crimson scrubs do YOU see walking around the NIC-U?

BIAS.

2 PM: Find as many words as possible hidden in the word LIBERALS. Here are a few to get you started:

-BIAS

-LIES

-LEIS

-BRA

-RALLIES

In other words... Honolulu Pride. Liberal bias and Pacific islands go together like Charles Darwin and exotic finches.

6 PM: Congratulate self on another day well-spent without receiving affirmative action. Take a photograph of self with web cam and forward to the NAACP. Subject line? WINNER. Inform them that by constantly harping on the old race card, they are wasting valuable time that could be spent doing important things, like listening to Glenn Beck and pushing for excellence.

9 PM: Fall into bed next to spouse. Double check to make sure spouse is opposite gender. All good? Make sure spouse is either white or correct kind of minority. The kind that work hard, have a heartbreaking tale of rags-to-riches, and are accomplished at some kind of white person instrument like the French Horn. Proficiency on any of the following instruments is to be discouraged:

-Bongo Drums

-Digeridoo

-Erhu

-Balafon

-Rain Stick

These are the wrong sort of instrument.

Keep in mind that these guidelines exist for the good of you, your spouse, your children, and America. You don't want to be that sad, confused father on Nancy Grace who has no idea why his son turned up American al-Quaeda. Ignore me, ignore Glenn Beck, and look forward to your life on the "No-Fly" list.

The Draft

2010-05-26T19:03:00.000-07:00

It's that time! Time for the ~~AFC~~ ~~NBA~~ ~~NFL~~ HOMO 2010-2011 Pride Season Draft!!

Released Recruits:

Backstreet Boys -- San Francisco Pride 2010. And yes, I did need to include this picture. I felt it necessary.

And holy crap I'm jealous, they've got Ongina!!!

Hedda Lettuce -- NYC Pride 2010

ALL THE KING'S MEN! (Can you tell we're excited?) --Boston Pride 2010

And Los Angeles just has a sick line up. It's enough to make me want to pack up my bags, blow up my boobs, and hope a plane to California.

1. Kelis

2. En Vogue (If you don't remember En Vogue, you don't have enough 90's nostalgia. Take 10cc's of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and call me in the morning)

3. Kelly Rowland (Formerly of Destiny's Child)

Those are the recruits for Los Angeles Pride 2010. Jealous yet?

Nashville Pride 2010 ain't too shabby either, with Vanessa Carlton headlining.

So who does the city of Dallas want to recruit to headline their Pride? Wait for it. It's really good. It's really really good.

Okay you have to guess. I can't really give you any hints without giving it away, so here.

...AHHH!!! I LOVE IT! I hope she agrees! She would be the best!! :D :D

Those are the recruits. If you go online, the strongest Prides are looking to be San Francisco and Los Angeles. The weakest Prides as far as entertainment given the high gayness of their cities look to be Boston and NYC. Sorry, no offense to ATKM, but a city like Boston is gay enough that it should have Rachel Maddow's Glasses as the Grand Marshall. Toronto gets Cindy Lauper AND Dragonette. And NYC? Weak. When you are New York and you get shown up by any city below the 43rd parallel, it's a sad scene. Step it up.

I Have Lots of Feelings

2010-05-26T18:47:00.001-07:00

So grant me the indulgence of channeling my frustrations below. Because really, bitches can't catch a break.

In Defense of the Sex Tape

Kendra recently sold her sex tape to Vivid Entertainment (the fine folks who brought us "FUCK: A History"). Now Adrienne Curry (Remember her? Neither did I. Apparently she's an America's Next Top Model has-been) is throwing shade at Kendra because Kendra sold the rights to her sex tape. Here's a quote from the clASSy lady's diatribe:

I can issue a statement crying and saying how terrible my sex tape is while I pocket millions of dollars….all it costs is ur self respect

I dont see why celebs cry and act like they dont want their sex tapes released when they have negotiated the deal themselves

Ridiculous. What actually happened is that, from what I gather, this company obtained the tapes and was going to release them with her consent or without it, so she was able to negotiate a last-minute deal with them so that at least some good could come out of the whole unfortunate situation. And may I just add that Adrienne Curry WISHES she could get a million dollars for her sex tape.

So either she's a victim who made bad decisions that strangers will profit off of, or she cuts her losses, makes a deal, and has suddenly "sold her self respect." Seriously? People need to back off. If you don't like it, don't buy the tape. But girl's got a baby to care for. Sometimes people can't catch a break. Kendra's got a really sweet heart, and it sucks that people keep tearing her down because they're jealous of her success! She may have gotten famous for being a stripper with a penchant for neon body paint, but she stays famous because she's funny and endearing. So bitches need to back off.

/End Feelings

What Is the One Thing We Love Most Here at LGN?

2010-05-24T22:02:00.000-07:00

GAY WEDDING STUFF!!!!!!!!!!!

And this is the CUTEST!!!!!!!!!!!!

Via JoeMyGod:

Gregory Jones and Jonathan Howard have finished in second place in Crate & Barrel's $100,000 Dream Wedding Contest. They and the other gay couples in the contest generated quite a lot of positive press for the marriage equality movement (as well as some internet nastiness, of course.)

Their story (via Crate + Barrel website):

Our love story.

Boy meets boy, boy falls for boy, and boys get engaged. The pure existence of our love is not always accepted. We had to deal with hatred from outsiders and support one another in recovery. Our love story involves the evolution of the meaning of love and the perseverance that allowed two people such as us to openly experience happiness. We knew that we were right for each other from the start, we knew that we would always be by one another’s sides and that as best friends we could truly experience our love openly.

Three important details about our Ultimate Wedding.

The three key things for our wedding are simply friends, family, and fun. We want a simple, but elegant affair at an outdoor vineyard in the DC area with our family and friends from across the country. Our family and friends are very important to us and our dream day would not be complete unless we were surrounded by all of them. And we want all of these people to be able to celebrate our love for each other and enjoy a memorable occasion.

Our everyday dream day.

Beauty, tranquility, and love characterize our perfect day. A perfect day for us is a day that is very similar to our wedding day. It is a day that we are free to spend together and to enjoy the company of our friends and family. One of our favorite weekend pastimes is venturing out to the vineyards in Virginia with a small group for a wine tasting and picnic. It gives us the opportunity to enjoy each others company, be absorbed by our surroundings and get away from the hectic lives we lead in the city.

CONGRATS GAY BOYS!!! WE LOVE YOU!!! HAPPY WEDDING!

DADT: The Language Has Debuted!

2010-05-24T21:47:00.000-07:00

Here it is, folks! The language we've all been waiting for! This is the official language concerning Don't Ask Don't Tell that will be going in the Defense Spending bill to be passed later this year!

Via Americablog:

The House and Senate will pass legislation this year that provides that "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" will be considered repealed if and when the following happens:

1. The Secretary of Defense receives the "study."
2. The President, the Secretary of Defense, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs certify that:
- They have considered the recommendations in the study
- DOD has prepared the necessary policies and regulations needed to implement a repeal
- The implementation of the repeal is consistent with the standards of military readiness, military effectiveness, unit cohesion, and recruiting and retention.

Current policy will remain in place until the above conditions are satisfied. And if the above conditions are never satisfied, the current DADT policy will remain in place.

There is nothing in the legislation that says the repeal must happen.

...Okay. So what that basically means is that this is a half-hearted way to make gay people FEEL like they've won, while actually making no difference for our LGBT siblings in the armed forces. I think it's interesting to see who here is giving the golf claps...

-The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (these folks are usually pretty great rabble rousers in the quest for equality), is surprisingly pretty pleased about this bit of legislation, calling it "A dramatic breakthrough in dismantling 'Don't Ask Don't Tell.'"

Of course, the HRC is falling all over its own bad self, trumpeting, "A solution has emerged!"

Yes. The house is on fire, and the neighbors have reached a consensus that in December, if they are all in agreement that the house is, in fact, burning, someone can use a fire extinguisher. But only if it won't offend the fire department. That kind of solution.

Feelings Interview 1: My Big Gay Friend Em

2010-05-20T20:41:00.000-07:00

1. Where are you going on your vision quest?

- A mangrove forest with tigers. And rainbows. There is not a waterfall.

2. When was the last time you cried for fun?

- First off I hate romantic comedies and chick flicks. The only time I’ve deliberately cried was just to get it out of my system. Like draino. Or emotional constipation.

3. Does Jamie Lee Curtis turn you on?

- Oh yeah, totally.

4. When was the last time you shaved?

- Ok. Wait. Like 2 hours ago. So I’m up to speed. But my arm pits? Since my ladyfriend left, like a week ago.

5. To which of the following have you penned your Feelings?

-Livejournal
-Myspace
-Facebook (agitation, rage)
-Xanga
-Inscription of a Book
-A Moleskin
-The Wall of a public restroom (City/State/Truck Stop No.)
-Other (Your Mom)

6. Have you ever dribbled paint down a canvas as an artistic expression?

- Yes. (becky's note-- Gives typical art student response about how it was all quite deliberate)

7. Would you rather:

a) Fall into your partner’s arms and whisper dramatically “Oh, just hold me.”
b) Give her a hand drawn portrait you just made. Of your future baby together.

8. Describe your mood in one adjective. I’ll toss it out a pick a better one if I think your vocabulary is inferior to mine.

Bone dry.

9. What’s the most grossly lesbian thing you’ve ever done?

I helped my girlfriend make a trunk. Carpentry style. We both have tool kits.

10. Have you ever taken a fortune cookie seriously?

OH I ACTUALLY GOT ONE LAST NIGHT. It says “Do not be afraid to show your inner vitality.” And at the end I wrote “In bed” and I’m going to take that very seriously.

Protecting the Innocent: Also, I am Sometimes an Asshole

2010-05-20T19:43:00.000-07:00

Enter the mea culpa:

So earlier, I did a post on Feelings Week, and I may or may not have incriminated the innocent via nickname in my examination of feelings. I'm so sorry if anybody was offended! I was just trying to poke at lesbian nicknames, not make anybody feel predatory, which is why I included myself on the list. Since I realize now that this was in poor taste, I removed the list and offer my apologies to anybody who might have been offended. I really appreciate you guys reading, and apologize again if you were made unhappy.

--becky

Once Again, Reason Saiiiills past Bill O'Reilly

2010-05-19T15:39:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RLd88jojLY

Bill states that because American Eagle has recently changed their language to be inclusive of trans and other gender queer people, male employees of American Eagle now have the right to dress like Dolly Parton.

The sense train just left the station. Billo failed to board.

If a BIOLOGICALLY FEMALE employee dressed like Dolly Parton at an AE store, they would be dressed inappropriately for work. Bill is shamefully and deliberately reinforcing the misconception held by many that transpeople dress like drag queens. Or, for that matter, that drag queens are, in fact, transpeople.

One need only to look at Rupaul's Drag Race finalist Raven a.k.a. David Petruschin, who is quite adamant about his gender identity as male, to know that "drag" is a form of entertainment that is by no means mutually inclusive of a transgendered identity.

Billo then compares transpeople to Ewoks... Because straight men are never disgustingly hairy people who wear ill-advised flannel vests.

The ignorance of the whole thing-- no. You know what? It isn't ignorance. If you're Bill O'Reilly, you've got enough wealth, resources, and experience in media to know that transpeople don't look like Vegas show girls. It's queer baiting. It's taking the "worst" stereotypes that his viewers have of transpeople, and continuing to spread false information.

Bill is suggesting here by comparing transpeople to Dolly Parton that transpeople are somehow a more "flamboyant" kind of homosexual. 'Cause it don't get more flaming than Dolly Parton (a 64 y.o. deeply Christian philanthropist and country music icon).

Wait... I'm confused. Bill is saying we don't want flaming homosexuals in fashion. Aren't there... a few gay people in the fashion industry?

-Isaac Mizrahi

-Marc Jacobs

-Karl Lagerfield

-Michael Kors

-Alexander McQueen

-Christian Siriano

-Jean Paul Gaultier

-John Galliano

-Alexander Wang

But none of them are that big of a deal.

The truth of the matter is that transpeople have captured the attention of the fashion industry in recent years, breaking down our nation's obsession with the gender binary one super-chic Givenchy ad at a time...

Somehow I have trouble replacing even one of these hot people with Bill O'Reilly's transphobic mug.
The transfolk in my life represent some of the most fashionable people I know. I know biological women who will drop $500 on an ill-fitting dress and refuse to spring for tailoring, while my trans friends have their garments altered to the point that they're practically bespoke. These are people who know how to dress women AND men... so why wouldn't we want them working in a fashion retailer that caters to both?

Jezebel, on Feelings

2010-05-15T21:43:00.001-07:00

Dear Future Girlfriend,

We’re at the point in our relationship where you talk about feelings. So, about 5 minutes in.

No, it’s really not a good time right now. It’s never going to be a good time. We could date for millennia it would still never be a good time.

It’s not that I don’t care—I do. It’s just never a “talk” about feelings. To me, a talk implies that there’s room for rational thought or, even better, debate. If I could talk you into or out of Feelings, the prospect of these Talks would be much more appealing.

I’m not even afraid of the Feelings. Those are fine. I have no problem telling you that I love you; believe me, I’ll let you know. It’s the Talking (the Constant Talking) that poses a problem for me. It’s never one Talk. You will want to have this same Talk over and over again. I wish we could keep a transcript of this first Talk, and then simply re-read it, separately, whenever we forget how it went.

Talks About Feelings go one of two ways. My preferred version features you saying your part, and (under much duress) I will say mine. Then we will stare awkwardly at each other until I can convince you to do something (ANYTHING) else. Alternatively, you can continue talking about Feelings while I silently list all the things I would rather be doing. Getting flu shots, giving orations in my underwear, and comparing paintings with Adolf Hitler will make the list.

I don’t spook easy. I enjoy being at the top of 20-foot tall rickety ladders, playing with boa constrictors, and swimming in the deep end of the pool. But man, you say those 6 little words, “We need to have a Talk,” and I am running in the opposite direction as fast as my asthma will allow.

In order to avoid future talks about feelings, here’s a little key to Jess Code:

§ If I razz you about your ex, it’s because I don’t like her. I don’t like her because she was stupid enough to let you go, though I’m sure I will cite other (very rational) reasons out loud.

§ If I tell you I think you’re pretty, it’s because I think you’re pretty. It doesn’t mean that I don’t think you’re smart or talented or fantastic at your job. It just means I think you’re pretty.

§ If I mention that I love Taylor Lautner with the fire of a thousand suns, it’s because I want to grate cheese on his abs. That’s all.

§ If I bring you dinner, jewelry, flowers, or a small mammal, it’s because I like you. We don’t need to talk about it, just accept the gift, and move on.

I hope this was as good for you as it was for me. And, though I sincerely doubt it will happen, I hope we never have to have this Talk again.

Sincerely,

Jezebel

FEELINGS WEEK: Soulful Saturday

2010-05-15T14:26:00.000-07:00

I'd like to welcome all of my readers to Feelings Week. Consider this a gift from me to the six of you.

BBC broadcaster and naturalist David Attenborough was among the first to document the pervasiveness of Feelings among lesbians of all nations, colors, and creeds. He spent six weeks as a testicular exchange student at Wellesley College for Lesbians of Quality, where he began to notice a trend among students. It found its roots in matriculation and followed a subtle but recognizable pattern until the students were released into the wild at 48 months.

Neophytes are known as "first-years." That's freshmen to all you slaves of the patriarchy who weren't blessed with an Ivy League ball-chopping education like some of us. A period of gorging and fraternizing, punctuated by brief and often disorienting spurts of arousal is frequently mistaken for "sisterhood." This perception is false. Sisterhood is dead.

That's a direct quote from David Attenborough, by the way. He says that "sisterhood" is either repressed homosexual aggression or an excuse to develop a costly cocaine habit that comes with cute matching hoodies.

He observed that by their second semester of college, most of the students have gained an acute awareness of their heterosexually non-specific attractions. Conservatives blame the trannies. I place the blame squarely where it belongs. So does David Attenborough.

Predatory Lesbians.

Predatory Lesbians are everywhere. They stalk impressionable first years, wooing them with their uncanny resemblance to Justin Bieber. I once heard a Predatory Lesbian whispering in the ear of a first year that her eyes reminded the P.L. of a waterfall in her home country of El Salvador. She made "Salvador" sound like the name of a sex toy... the kind only industry insiders know about.

Predatory Lesbians thrive on collecting toasters. You don't need to know what that means. Just know that if a Predatory Lesbian tries to claim that she has yours, tell her you gave it away already. Don't ask what it means. Just know that you'll be way less lame if you say that.

If you're wondering if the lesbian who you've been not-crushing-on-because-you're-not-gay-and-besides-you-eschew-labels is a Predatory Lesbian, all you really have to know is her name. I know that for some of you (especially the ones who *cough* you know... drinky drinky), this can be a challenge, but know that a name is crucial in determining whether or not your muff diver is a PL, because Predatory Lesbians have nicknames.

My favorite thing about Predatory Lesbians (and Attenborough's) is watching the Fall of the Predatory Lesbian each spring at graduation. These gods among men, these radical harbingers of the "BUG/LUG" declarations, these high and mighty lesbians catch one glimpse of a diploma and throw themselves so far back in the closet that they can make a snowdyke in Narnia.

I once had a group of Predatory Lesbians declare me a LUG. It's never a fun thing to be told. But alas, as long as I refuse to buy 3X shirts from the little boy's section of the Gap, I'll always be a Lesbian Until Graduation...

Feelings

So I got off track. This is Feelings Week, and I don't really know where we left off or why I went on a diatribe about Predatory Lesbians except that I believe they have a lot of aggression and weird feelings, but anywho, Feelings!

This week I'll be featuring guest articles and interviews from lesbians who have a lot of feelings. I'd like to thank our writer Allison for collaborating with me to make Feelings Week a reality, and to all you lesbians out there who are willing to bare your soul on ~~LiveJournal~~ ~~Xanga Facebook status updates~~ Lazy Gay News!

And one last note, for those of you who will be contributing, or even those of you who just enjoyed our humble contributions to Lesbian Research... If you enjoy what you read here, spread the word! Repost, tag on facebook, link, tmblrr... I don't know what the hell terminology they're using these days, but share us with your friends and family! It really makes a huge difference to all of our writers that their words get read, so share share share!

I Can't Believe the Supreme Court Is Wasting Their Time on These Morons

2010-05-15T14:02:00.000-07:00

While the title of this post could serve as the body of the document, I'll elaborate a little.

A group of anti-gay activists are taking their suit to the Supreme Court, claiming discrimination because they routinely vote against gay marriage, hate crimes legislation, and legislation that would protect the LGBT right to vote.

This is an exceptional nugget from the opening arguments, courtesy of GLAD:

A country club member in California, a supporter of Proposition 8, noted that “the openly gay members of the country club have changed their attitudes toward me. They used to greet me warmly; now, they give me looks of disdain and do not greet me as I pass.”

A person with a yard sign supporting Proposition 8 was disturbed on Halloween that some people “pointed and whispered to one another in disapproval” during trick-or-treating.

A woman was upset that her brother, who is gay, would no longer speak to her after she told him she might vote for Proposition 8.

Okay. You're right. This is totally just as bad as that thing that happened last week in Kentucky where a group of angry teens tried to murder a lesbian by pushing her off a cliff.

NEWS FLASH, IDIOTS: You voted against their right to get married. You told them that their relationship wasn't "real" in your opinion. You called the most meaningful love of their life a "life choice." You are insinuating that they are somehow "wrong" because of their identity.

What the hell did you expect them to do? Throw you a parade?

The Incredible Things Just Keep Coming...

2010-05-15T13:48:00.000-07:00

The Feminist Hulk on Twitter: HULK NOT AFRAID OF GLASS CEILING. HULK EAT GLASS FOR BREAKFAST.

INCREDIBLE.

2010-05-13T19:38:00.000-07:00

This video... incredible. Soliders in Iraq show their support for the repeal of DADT:

Oh, this is too good

2010-05-10T12:30:00.000-07:00

Sorry I've been away so long. Been out of town, but am back now and have this steaming pile of delicious, delicious scandal for you.

George Rekers is an asshole. Cofounder of the Family Research Council, sitting member of NARTH (those folks whose fingers are in most of the anti-gay junk science pies), Rekers has been described as a "family values crusader." He was paid $120,000 by the state of Florida to defend the anti-gay adoption bill. Which he then spent on a prostitute. You guessed it. A dude.

And then the Miami Times listened on speakerphone to the conversation between Rekers and the rent boy...

Sometimes People Ask Me...

2010-05-02T10:36:00.003-07:00

...How I can be so solid in my faith.

May I submit the following evidence:

There are more things in heaven and the internet, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Don't Ask, Don't Call

2010-04-29T22:08:00.001-07:00

Courtesy of our men in uniform in Afghanistan =)

Okay...

2010-04-27T06:39:00.000-07:00

I am sitting in a coffee shop next to a notorious evangelist, and I CAN'T put a name to a face!! But for some reason I keep picturing his face in a Christian Bookstore, which I usually do when I meet well-known members of the religious right.

Food For Thought

2010-04-24T20:46:00.001-07:00

"Some of them think I am queer

Because I am undesirable

You prove to them that being queer

Is your desire."

My Dad's Republican Mail: Best Of

2010-04-22T14:15:00.001-07:00

Mailing 1: Senator Rick Santorum

Look at how jacked up the flag is on this Tea Party mailing. That's deliberate. That motherfucker's taken SHRAPNEL. It is god damned Colonial. And so are you, patriot.

Mailing 2: A Personal Letter from Mike Huckabee

This was a special letter. There were some very moving passages about how the radical leftists and atheists are trying to take God out of the Constitution. Dudes. God made a mountain range in like... 6 hours. I don't think he cares.

Just check whichever box applies. And remember, the less you give, the smaller your penis probably is. I'm just saying. I don't know how big it is, but you do. *cough* Lay Leaders, I'm looking at you here.

Faith Defender. I love that. These are the dudes who want to go on a fucking crusade. Anyways, here's what I figure the Radical Feminist Vegan Democratic Lesbians For A Peaceful Middle East fundraising letter would look like:

Mailing 3: Speaker Marco Rubio R-FL against Governor Charlie Crist

You may remember Charlie Crist. He's the anti-gay fake baking governor of Florida who has personally ensured that Florida has more anti-gay legislation than basically any territory outside of Uganda. He was also a "confirmed bachelor" until people started asking why all his attractive male staff members suddenly left the state during the last election... And why he only dated women around election time... And why his most recent ex-girlfriend told the Gay Republican expose, "Outrage," "Talk to me in ten years... I'll have quite the story to tell."

Well, he ducked the gay claims long enough to get into office as governor, but since the documentary "Outrage" brought a white-hot spotlight on the baker, he's had some struggles holding onto his conservative base... Enter Marco Rubio. Who can't quite talk about the gay thing... no... he simply couldn't...

A good looking, well-dressed dude who calls another good looking, well-dressed dude "my guy" while they were stimulus-ating each other?

Let's penetrate this issue deep inside... the letter:

Gay people can hold many different positions. In bed.

This is exhausting. How many different ways can we talk about the gay thing without talking about the gay thing?

There've been more hugs in this letter than in front of the Castro after a free screening of Milk.

I'm A Femme Because I Just Have A Lot of Feelings, Okay?

2010-04-22T12:37:00.001-07:00

In addition to making me laugh and weep for a solid eight minutes, the Ivan Coyote video posted below made me really think about what being a femme means to me.

Ivan's right. Being a femme means you have to come out of the closet. Again and again and again and again and again. And then one more time because are you SURE you're not just going through a phase? People almost never ask men if they're sure that they're gay. And they rarely ask women who present masculine if they're sure. Does that mean that we think that men know what they're doing while women don't? ...Abortion, anybody? Any takers?

Some days, I want to dress like a dyke. Yesterday was one of those days. I woke up, I put my cargo shorts on, put on my flannel button-down, and went to the mall in my aviators. To buy some Bare Minerals translucent mineral finishing powder.

"Um... really?" Asked the sales woman.

If I walk into a cosmetic store and ask for a translucent finishing powder to go with my Shu Uemura 2.5 cm powder brush, I already know more about basic cosmetology than 80% of the female population. So yes, despite my dykish appearance I REALLY DO want the powder. There are some days when I have vaginas on my face. But translucent finishing powder is on my face every day. Can I get an amen up in here?

As a femme, I don't really like to date butches. People make the assumption that femmes only date butches because it's the "closest" thing to dating a dude. Especially when you went to a glorified estrogen bath for four years. That assumption alone is enough to put me off butches pretty much all together. I don't care how butch you are, there are some serious bitches in the lesbian community who will preach about women's liberation in their Women's Studies 350 lecture and then turn around and call their friendly femme a LUG (lesbian until graduation) just because she dates a butch. Preacher, heal thyself. Bitches throw shade.

As a femme, I am dating another femme. To protect the innocent, I don't write about her too often, but suffice to say... To quote Ivan,"Yeah, she's with me." As two femmes, I've never experienced anything quite like the crazy shit that people (read: men) seem to think is okay to do to us. Again, I think it all goes back to sexism. When there's a butch in the relationship, it's almost like men see it and assume the role of "dominating male" has been filled. They see two femmes and all of the sudden it's like there's room for them. Men, I assure you: There is no room for you. You're not the missing link. Goodbye.

Oh, and don't fucking ask me "which one is the guy." I feel like the day people stop asking this is the day people stop and ponder...

It's funny... being with another femme never feels out of balance because it's not... it's not "her" and "her." It's me and you. And I hate the days when a drunk group of guys gets up in our face and starts intimidating us on the street, because all of the sudden the thousands of tiny things it took me months to learn about You get erased and You become Her and I become an Extra Her and that's not what it's all about.

I take it back. I'm a lesbian because I just have a lot of feelings. I'm a femme because I just have a lot of shoes.

Amazing.

2010-04-21T23:30:00.000-07:00

I hate posting videos because I rarely watch them myself, but this is an amazing one. A sort of ode to queer femme women. As a femme lesbian, it makes me smile and cry. Both of which I seem to be doing a lot of lately...

2010-04-21T19:41:00.001-07:00

"The election of Ronald Reagan in the '80's brought a large number of high-ranking closeted gay Republican officials who deliberately failed to address the growing issue of AIDS."

-Outrage, Documentary

There is an image of Reagan and an army of polished, suiting men who walk slowly by the cameras that is absolutely haunting to me. Several of these men are closeted gay men, and all of them remained silent out of selfish cowardice while the bodies piled up. Shameful.

524,000 Americans have died since the beginning of the AIDS epidemic.

The Most Disgusting

2010-04-21T15:22:00.001-07:00

This is truly disgusting. Focus on the Family brings us their view of Obama's extending hospital visitation rights to LGBT families in case of emergency...

Focus On The Family: "What complicated this memo -- and is a concern to us -- is the third point, [in which] the president directs Health and Human Services to investigate and to look for ways to perhaps give even more rights to same-sex couples when it comes to hospital visitation and medical decision-making. That was specifically for that demographic and it did not include other unmarried people. So in that way it was most certainly perpetuating a political agenda that we have seen from this president."

This is a polite way of saying that those fags now get the legal right to watch each other die of AIDS.

The move has been described by conservative Christianists as a means of "appeasing radical left extremist groups."

Listen, assholes. This bill was passed because a woman had to be restrained outside as her partner of 18 years died alone. The right is trying to dehumanize this bill, to make it look like it's not addressing a real problem. That it's not a bill to fix real injustices, just an attempt to further gay marriage.

Ask the three children who couldn't be with the woman who raised them when she died if it's a real fucking problem.

These people are the lowest form of life.

We Aren't Racist! The GAYS! The GAYS are Racist!

2010-04-21T15:04:00.000-07:00

Members of GetEqual, the gay rights organization attempting to see Don't Ask Don't Tell repealed in 2010 (sorry guys... guess Barack Obama didn't get the memo), heckled Obama at a recent event for his failure to go for low hanging fruits .

Tired of being called racists for emailing photographs comparing Michelle Obama to an orangutan, the conservatives down at Fox News fire back:

"Perhaps the members of Get Equal should look in the mirror and ask themselves why they're so uncomfortable with a black man in the Oval Office. Maybe Chris Matthews could ask this question for them while Olbermann holds the mirror."

Above are the founding members of GetEqual in a photograph taken earlier this week chained to the White House, waiting to get arrested.

I mean, look at that white guy in the middle. He hates non-white people so much he decided to chain himself to them for six hours. And don't even get me started on his deeply rooted sexism.

Woman, Meet Your Demographic

2010-04-19T19:54:00.000-07:00

I've been reading a lot of posts recently by friends who are offended at the advertisements Facebook apparently thinks would interest them. Friends who have been enjoying vaginas pretty much since the first time they came out of one have been getting advertisements for "Finding Mr. Right." My friends found Mr. Right, asked him where he bought his aviators, then banged his girlfriend in the men's section of the Gap.

My own personal crusade is against weight loss ads. I'll be the first to admit that I've gotten rather sensitive about the topic of weight loss. In the midst of recovering from an extended illness, I've gone from a happy and robust size 10/12 to a size 4. The thing that makes me so angry is that most people's response, including several long-term customers I work with is "Oh my god, congratulations! How did you do it?"

I want to grit my teeth and say "Six months of pain, vomiting, and peeing blood." I've got a more "PC" answer, but it drives me crazy that any size in the single digits is somehow considered victorious, while larger sizes are seen as starting points from which to improve. It feels to me like we're in this "battle" against our body. The language of weight loss advertisements, articles, and websites removes individual accountability: we're not responsible if our metabolism is sluggish. Some people just have an under-active thyroid. There's a deliberate attempt to separate us from our bodies. Our body becomes the enemy. It's not the cupcake going in our mouth that makes those pants a little tighter. I mean, it couldn't be the cupcake, because some people eat crap their whole lives and are ALWAYS thin! So naturally it must be that our bodies lack a certain vitamin that jump starts our metabolism.

And all at once it's us versus them. Me versus body. Because when we are separate from our body, we can hate our body. We can feel safe knowing that it's okay hate our body if it's not doing the right thing, because it's separate from us. We can't control it. This is a false mindset perpetuated by the MASSIVE weight loss industries in this country.

My problem, my fear, and my sadness are that I've lost weight. My recovery only began when I reunited my spirit and my mind with my body. I realized that the decisions I make impact my body directly. So when I watched my body slowly disappear, the same body that had been so good to me for so many years, that had filled out my clothes and was beautiful to me, I was upset. Distraught would be a better word. Devastated each time I lost another five pounds, but upset when I regained them because every word from my upbringing and the media told me I should be.

Every time I see an ad telling me how much I want to lose weight, I become furious. It literally uses terminology of war to separate us from our bodies. That's how they can sell these products that are so ABSOLUTELY wrong for our bodies.

And drumroll please... HOW does Facebook know I want to lose weight?

Because I'm a woman!

I'm a young woman and I'm not married! There was once a suitor, but he found my hope chest lacking and sought greener pastures. As I walked past Whole Foods on January 1st, five out of six "New Years Resolutions" ads featured women who declared that this was the year to lose weight! The sixth was some guy who was daring to believe in the power of his dreams or some shit.

To whom it may concern:

As you astutely observed by my ample breasts, I am a lady. I do not want to lose weight, so lay the hell off already. I didn't see "The Notebook," I don't like Amanda Seyfried, I'm not wondering what He Secretly Thinks About in Bed, because if He's In My Bed, That Means The Alarm System Didn't Work Properly. If there really were a "South American mystery fruit that makes pounds melt," my church would look like a tub of Country Crock on a hot summer day. I don't read Cosmopolitan or Glamour, because I frankly don't give a shit about the Five Things I Don't Even Know I'm Doing Wrong. And don't try to scare me with claims about how scary cellulite is on a lady. I'm gay. That's the fun stuff to squeeze when the lights are out.

Becky

I Am a Lady, so Feel Free to Tell Me I'll Have Feelings.

2010-04-12T19:29:00.001-07:00

We here at Lazy Gay News don't like to pick sides... oh hell, yes we do.

From a (formerly) anti-abortion ad in the NYC subway. Before:

After:

Prop. 8 Update

2010-04-12T14:34:00.000-07:00

Ignoring for a moment the Prop. 8 court case currently cooking on the stove of Judge Vaughn Walker, we cast our eyes to the California state voters.

It has just been announced that "Repeal 8" group Love, Honor, Cherish failed to gain the necessary 700,000 signatures required to put the repeal on the 2010 ballot. It's important to bring up the schism between groups such as LHC and Equality California, which have split on the issue of when voters should reexamine Prop 8. Equality California, arguably the largest LGBT anti-8 group currently operating in CA has led the push to ignore the 2010 ballot in favor of the 2012 ballot, giving California voters a full four years to see that current CA married gay couples haven't cause every fault line in California soil to split open and consume the state's residents whole.

More at the Sacramento Bee.

MTV True Life: I Was A Menstruating Woman

2010-04-12T10:53:00.000-07:00

Ovaries, mother nature, I know this might be hard for you. But I really do feel that you need to understand something.

I win.

Despite years of heteronormative, patriarchal upbringing, despite my unbroken home, despite my having been presented to society in formal attire accompanied by a strapping young man, I'm a big homo dyke.

Why must we continue to play these monthly games? I deny you a baby, so you wring me like a towel and cause me 48 hours of intense crazy followed by another 48 hours of intermittent pain. My girlfriend has noticed. She says cut it with the crazy.

You're not getting a baby. Every day I walk by the infant clothing store on my way to get my big homo latte, and do you know what I think when I see those tiny, tiny sneakers?

My, what small shoes.

And I continue walking.

This is not some romantic comedy where the smart and funny heroine with the enviable but ultimately unsatisfying Career goes through a series of hi-jinx ending in an accidental pregnancy and a shopping cart full of some Pottery Barn Kids.

This is the Count of Monte Christo, where you beat me monthly as a symbol of my incarceration that conveniently marks the flow of time. And I cackle and drool and chuckle to myself that I've learned to read now! And you don't know about that old guy with the mattress full of dirt and the rusty spoon! I've dug my way to FREEDOM, bitches! And freedom looks an awful lot like a lady's vagina and all-access passes to Lilith Fair!!!

So FUCK OFF. I'm NOT giving you a baby, so give up now and spare us both a lot of pain.

Becky

What Happened on the Cross: Sunday Reflections

2010-04-11T15:58:00.000-07:00

This Sunday, I went to a different kind of church. A few friends of mine kindly allowed me to attend their church, and the experience was more or less in line with my expectations. I'd like to take a more serious approach to today's post, as I'm thinking it might be my last for a while.

Something has been bothering me. As I sat in church today I gazed upon, in typical evangelical church form, a giant backlit majestic cross, nails and all. Behind the lyrics to the pop Christian songs were various artistic flickering crosses, staggered in front of a desert or cutting across a sandy beach. Every so often a photographic abstraction- a lens flare, film reel details- would cut in front of the cross for effect.

Most importantly, the entire message was literally nailed to the cross. We sang that the cross was behind us. Our hopes were hinged to the cross of Christ. We get warm, fuzzy feelings of safety, support, and redemption from the cross. Which made me angry.

Because crucifixion, from its classical origins and by definition, is the public destruction of an individual whose life choices, beliefs, or practices contradict those of the dominant system of belief.

In 71 B.C. following a slave revolt, Sulla's general Crassus had 6,000 slaves crucified to line the Appian Way, a road leading into Rome. The event was so traumatic to onlookers that the art and writings of children who witnessed the crucifixion show evidence of trauma.

Crucifixion is not a nice thing. It's not just something that you can close your eyes and rock back and forth from the safety of your air conditioned mega-church and sing Christian lite rock about. People, whole groups of people, often united by nothing more than an unpopular set of views or practices, were nailed alive to slabs of wood while they suffocated or died of sepsis from the stab wounds.

The beauty of the Crucifixion lies in Christ's willingness to make this painful sacrifice for the sins of humanity. There is power in that sacrifice. I think what upsets me is, then, in the face of Christ willingness to embody the undesirable, the use of the phrase "God's Chosen People" in the same sermon.

Suddenly, the Gospel of Luke, the Gospel of the Poor is too "liberal" for the mainstream church. The minute Jesus walked to the cross, he walked away from the air conditioning, from the snazzy power points that make you feel righteous, from "God's justice," because there was no justice in the Crucifixion. That's the whole point. To paraphrase the great Douglas Adams, we live 2,000 years after a guy was nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be if we were all nice to each other.

Today we asked ourselves when we were doing our bidding versus when we were doing God's bidding. But we never once asked the same question of "God's Church." Maybe if we asked ourselves that question more often, we wouldn't be dealing with an unprecedented number of church-sanctioned child rapes. How about the gilded Protestant reverends, Billy Graham, Rick Warren, Jerry Falwell? How is it that they seem to know who to hate?

Ask yourself who would be crucified today.

Dr. George Tillman was gunned down in church before the eyes of his friends and family because a man needed to send a message.

Matthew Shepard was 21 years old the year he was tortured and murdered because homosexuality is an abomination to someone.

The evangelical churches look to the cross for comfort, for rubber-stamping, for feel good pictures of seascapes and the wind blowing through a white shroud on a backlit crucifix. And I don't know how to feel about that. Except that it's somehow all wrong.

HAPPY 100 (... and 2) POSTS, LAZY GAY NEWS!!!!!!

2010-04-09T18:31:00.000-07:00

We've shared intimate gay moments together 100 (and 2) times, friends!

The last pic is my favorite. And hallelujah, it's from Nashville Pride. Yee haw. Somebody should start a tmblr website, "Look At This Fucking Redneck Gay Person."

My New Favorite Website

2010-04-08T11:21:00.001-07:00

Nataliedee.com ! Hysterical and right on :D

These folks "bust the bottom out of hell."

2010-04-08T10:33:00.000-07:00

Wow... You know your ~~hate group~~ church has set the bar for low... when even the KKK won't touch it.

From the official KKK website, via Joe My God:

"NOTE: The Ku Klux Klan, LLC, has not or EVER will have ANY connection with the 'Westboro Baptist Church.' We absolutely repudiate their activities."

Pot, meet kettle.

When your organization has a reputation for burning people alive, hanging innocent people, and creating fear that has lasted nearly a hundred years, it's quite something to think that you're better than anybody.

*Note: I debated whether or not to post this image, because the subjects of both sides are so loathsome and are the source of pain and fear for so many people. I hope to use satire to convey the disgust I feel for both groups, but if you find the above image upsetting, please email me and I'll take it down immediately. --b