Well boys and girls, I'm happy to report that after more than half a century, I have once again awakened on the right side of the dirt this morning. I don't like to make a big deal out of my birthday, but I'm sort of at the point in my life where I've become increasingly aware that there are more of them behind me than there are ahead.
I don't want to get all introspective on your asses, but except for the aches and pains that come with being a man of a certain age, I really do feel better than I ever have in my life. I'm learning not to sweat the small stuff, although I'm finding that the older I get, the less tolerance I have for people who choose not to use their brains, or, as you know them, stupid people.
It's true. I don't consider myself to be a rocket scientist, so if someone is dumber than me, that's really saying something. When a customer at work tells me that they don't know how to use a fax machine, a piece of technology that has been around for more than 30 years, I really have to exercise a great deal of personal restraint to keep from grabbing them by the throat and saying "It's just a fucking phone!" Instead, I have become a master of the Blank Stare.
I have found that when I'm at work and someone says something really stupid or racist or homophobic and I can't react in the way I'd like to and still keep my job, I pause and stare blankly at the offender and allow their stupid remark to hang in the air for a few seconds before I respond. This accomplishes two things. First, it gives me a little time to come up with a more "appropriate" response.
Second ~ and most importantly ~ the blank stare gives the stupid person, and others in the general vicinity, a moment to think about what they said.
Yes, I am aware that stupid people hardly ever think about what they say, because they've got that whole stupid thing going on. But sometimes this works out well and we both realize the stupidity in question was only a momentary brain fart. The person realizes what they said, laughs, apologizes and we start over, with a much more pleasant outcome.
But with the hardcore, stupid-to-the-bone customer, I have to take a breath and dumb down my vocabulary into small words and short sentences, while I look over their shoulder at the customer behind them and share a knowing look and a stifled giggle. Usually when they move to the head of the line, they'll say something like, "Wow, that guy sure is stupid!" Being the consummate customer service professional that I am, I am obliged to smile and agree.
Where am I going with all this? I don't really know. Maybe at my age, I've learned a few things about human nature or maybe I'm finding ways to have more fun in situations that used to stress me out. Or maybe I need to adjust my meds as I begin the long, slow decent into senility.
Whatever! Life is short. Laugh at stupid people every chance you get. It may not accomplish anything concrete or change the world, but it will definitely make you feel better about yourself.
Ever since I got the idea for Osmunda Haines, I’ve been itching to draw her into the strip. My original conception of her was more horrific: below the waist, leggy starlet; above the waist, a squat, shriveled pile resembling a termite mound. I tried lots of designs, but they were all too grotesque. I think my final model is just disturbing enough to be funny. Osmunda has great legs, like Joan Crawford (and was born the same year), and she has wildly age-inappropriate “glamour girl” hair, like Ginger Rogers in the 1970’s. She was initially inspired by Martha Raye, and slated to star in a storyline involving Sticky. I haven’t decided if I still want to write that one or not. At any rate, Dill is Osmunda’s biggest fan, so we’ll learn more about her and the film “Gazebo” as the strip progresses. -- Jeremy Rizza
Posted with the permission of the artist. Visit VikingZombieBoyfriend.com for previous strips, character back stories and cool merchandise.
Okay, it's Sunday and I don't usually post on Sundays, but I want to take a moment to clear up a few things about me, our community and our need to lighten the fuck up about ourselves.
One of the things that Americans are best known for around the world is our ability to laugh at ourselves and nobody does that better than Queer Americans.
Where does it come from? Maybe it's a coping mechanism, like laughing so you won't cry. The bottom line for me is, who gives a rat's ass? Go with what works. I hate to over analyze comedy because it takes all the fun out of it. Making jokes is fun. That's why we do it. Humor can also be used as a weapon to take somebody down a peg or two when he's a little too full of himself or a little too serious about life in general.
One of the things I'm best known for is my sense of humor. Some people get it and some people don't. I don't worry too much about the ones that don't get it. The ones that laugh at my off the cuff remarks more than make up for the ones that don't. I was the smart-ass kid whose mother always said, "Don't laugh, you'll just encourage him." She was soooo right.
Laughter is its own reward. It's like a narcotic. Once you get that rush, you want more and you'll do anything to get it. Once I shaved my mustache and tended bar in drag in a straight bar just for a laugh. When an elderly, very drunk and very straight man started hitting on me, I said in my deepest, butchest voice, "Thanks, man." Everybody, except the old drunk guy, laughed their asses off.
Another time, at a different job, I took everything out of my boss's office and set it up in the company's warehouse, with everything exactly in place, as an April Fool's joke. The next year I staged a theft of my company car, knowing that my boss was the last one to drive it, then accused him of punking me. Both times everyone laughed... except my boss.
I will make jokes about myself, my friends, my family, my coworkers, my boss, celebrities, strangers, news makers, politicians and anyone who takes him/herself too seriously. Like I said, some people get it and some people don't. I find that the people who don't get my sense of humor probably aren't people I'd want to hang with anyway. If somebody gets the joke, that means they can probably tell a good joke too, so it's all good.
Then there are the people who catch the ball and run with it. In the late 90's I got a job as Education Coordinator for a debt counseling agency. On my first day, my boss took me with him to a lecture he was doing for a women's group. As we walked up to his pickup truck, I noticed the logo decal on the cap he had over the bed of the truck. It said "Leonard". So I immediately, and very conversationally, asked, "So what made you wanna name your truck Leonard?"
Without missing a beat he said, "I named it after my mother."Bah-dum-bump! We didn't see eye to eye on a lot of things. In fact, in many ways he was the worst boss I ever had. But I always knew that he and I shared a particular sense of humor and I used it many times to diffuse tense working situations.
When I was a kid, it was my bothers and sisters who had the best sense of humor. I guess it was a way for us to cope with my parents' divorce and the abusive environment we were living in, but it turned out to be a comedy training ground. During long family car trips, somebody would say something funny, then somebody else would say something to make the joke better. Then somebody else would add to it and so on, until one of us came up with something so funny that it couldn't be topped. I sometimes think of it like a game of volley ball, where team members set each other up by keeping the ball in the air, bouncing from one person to the next, so that the best player on the team can spike it over the net, right into somebody's face. Score!
However, if your joke bombed, you weren't allowed to speak for the rest of the trip. Since those days I have learned that there is comedy to be found in most everyday situations if you look at it from the right, twisted perspective.
Okay, where am I going with all of this? I shared the video below on my FaceBook status today with the following comment: "I love Scare Tactics, but every week they get some big old nelly queen on there that undoes 4 decades of progress. You gotta see this."
A good friend of mine accused me of being prejudiced against effeminate gay men. WTF!? He said something about me being a community leader and that people pay attention to what I write and say and that I should be more sensitive. Long story short, I actually had to publicly defend myself and my sense of humor on FaceBook.
For the record, I understand that it was a bunch of nelly queens that fought the cops at the Stonewall Inn and we owe them everything. However, those queens stood up for themselves and refused to act like scared little girls any more. That is what we respect and admire them for. It is their courage, not their cowardice, that we honor every June. They forever changed the stereotype of the effeminate gay man as a coward.
What I love about Scare Tactics, and shows like it that follow in the footsteps of the classic Candid Camera(that I grew up watching), is that they find the humor in everyday people caught in the act of being themselves. Scare Tactics takes it up several notches by placing ordinary people in extreme situations for our personal amusement. In this scenario, the guy thinks he's been hired to babysit a little girl. When he's confronted by strange voices from the TV and objects moving by themselves, then the ghost of the dead sister, he completely losses it, with hilarious results.
Did he try to protect the little girl in his care or try to get her to safety? No. Did he attempt to fight back or in any way stand up to the perceived threat? No. He screamed like a little girl. He lived up the the stereotype of gays as cowards. That is the motivation for my comment and I make no apology for it. This guy showed us what a pussy he really is and for millions of Americans, he reinforced a deplorable stereotype. But it was funny.
How would I have reacted in a situation like that? I don't know and I don't care. Chances are I will never be on a show like that, so we'll probably never know what my reaction would be. I do hope that if I ever find myself in a similar circumstance and end up on a show like this, that you and the rest of the world will laugh your asses off.
If it's true that I am a community leader and that people pay attention to what I write and say, then please pay attention to this:
Don't be a pussy like the guy in this video!
Have the balls to stand up for yourself and your point of view. Don't be a walking stereotype and never -- and I mean N-E-V-E-R -- let anyone tell you what you should or shouldn't say. Finally, Watch the following clip and laugh your ass off like I did.
I realized yesterday that I hadn't done my "Cool Site of the Week" post for quite a while, so I thought it's time I got back to it. There are so many sites offering up the same old, same old. When I find something that catches my attention for more than 3 seconds, I feel like I should share it with my merry little band of readers. I'll try to do a better job of keeping up with this feature.
After scouring the interwebs for literally several minutes, I found two sites that I really like and just have to share with you. They are each the product of people I have friended on FaceBook and I've enjoyed them both for quite a while now. I really had a hard time choosing between the two, so I decided to recommend them both. Since I haven't done this post for a while, I figured it couldn't hurt.
Now I understand that with everybody blogging about everything these days, it's hard to find something new and original on the web. Keeping it fresh means you have to bring something to the table that no one else can, like your own original opinion, sense of style or sense of humor. Hollywood-based Ester Goldberg brings all of that with regular videos of her stand-up comedy show, celebrity news and original interviews. Ester's delivery is part Ida Morgenstern (Nancy Walker from 70's the sitcom "Rhoda"), part Dame Edna, with a healthy dash of pre-reconstruction Joan Rivers. Ester would have fit in perfectly on any episode of "The Nanny".
As you may have guessed, I have a thing for Jewish humor and for me there's nothing funnier than an over-the-top yenta reading someone like the New York Times.
I think what I love best about Ester is that she does what both RuPaul and Varla Jean Merman have been able to do, take the art of drag to a higher level by breaking away from what's been done before and letting her own unique style show through all the the hair and makeup. You don't see much of that in what passes for drag entertainment these days.
I love a good drag show, but unfortunately, I haven't seen a good drag show in a very long time. Sorry dears, but putting on the same, tired, nasty wig from the 80's and wearing some lame-ass excuse for a frock that you threw together on your momma's old Singer and badly lip-sinking someone else's songs doesn't cut it any more, especially when you do the same tired routine every week. Adding more sequins doesn't make it a better show when the talent just isn't there.
What Ester does is not a drag show, it's an original stage performance by an incredibly talented and funny entertainer. Have a look and take notes. There will be a quiz.
"Douchebags Daily" My second choice for "Cool Site of the Week" comes to us via blogger Billy Pollina, called "Douchebags Daily". I'll let Billy tell you in his own words who/what qualifies as a douchebag and is worthy of mention on his site:
"What is a douchebag? We're glad you asked. A douchebag is a person who has surpassed all levels of jerk, idiot, loser, thief, liar or the like and therefore elevated themselves to the exalted title of DOUCHEBAG. Every day there's a douchebag who out does another douchebag in their doucheness. Here we post the douchest douchebags of the day. We recognize that we're not experts in doucheness so your suggestions are always welcome. Check back often for updates."
Today, DD's pick is radio scheister "Dr." Laura Schlessinger, who went on a tirade yesterday on the air dropping the N-word up to fifteen times in one conversation with an Africa-American caller. This alleged woman has reached new heights in douchebaggery and deserves special recognition in the Douchebag Hall of Fame for her homophobic rants alone. I don't know if such a place exists, but if there isn't, I'm sure "Douchebags Daily" will build one.
Ever since the current regime took office last year, Virginians have had to endure a seemingly endless barrage of humiliating, embarrassing and extremely bigoted statements, homophobic executive orders, frivolous and paranoid lawsuits against the federal government and general douche-baggery from the comedy team of Bob "Drill, Baby, Drill" McDonnell and Ken "Cooch" Cuccinelli.
Now you can share your shame as a Virginian with your friends and loved ones via these clever e-cards from VirginiaEcards.com.
You can choose from a variety of quotes from McDonnell and Cooch, like, "Dear BP, We have some lovely beachfront property available.", "And you thought things couldn't get any worse." and "Ken Cuccinelli is totally ruining my presidential prospects."
Don't suffer in silence. Misery loves company, so let your out of state friends and family know that Virginia is more than just a hotbed of hypocrisy and bigotry. Send a Virginia E-card today!
Jeremy writes: "My original idea for Sticky’s dislike of Rorik was a convoluted story involving Rorik throwing a tantrum at a dentist office where Sticky worked as a receptionist, and it made so little sense that I finally scrapped it and went with Rorik sucker-punching Sticky in the face. It’s so much more eloquent that way."
What do you get when you hold a clothing drive at work that promises a free Bud Light for every piece of clothing donated? An office full of dedicated humanitarians willing to give their all for a good cause and a brand new take on "Casual Friday". Thanks to the the guys at Bearotic for pointing this one out.
I know that sometimes the tone of the posts here can be a little serious, so I've decided to try to include more humor whenever I can. It's sort of what I started out doing, but with so much political and LGBT news to report on, sometimes I forget that what we all really need sometimes is a good laugh. I'll be making an extCa effort to include more funny bits whenever I find I can.
This video is from British comedian Catherine Tate ("Dr. Who", "The Catherine Tate Show"). Tate's sketch comedy show ran for several years in the UK and can be seen in reruns from time to time on BBC America. Tate is a truly versatile comic genius in the tradition of Tracy Ullman. In this clip, she plays an Irish mother who's son just came out to her with hilarious results, if you can get around the funny accents.
It's that time of year again. Everyone and his dog is compiling a list of highlights of the year's big events and most important stories. I've been working on my list as well. This video from Jib Jab sums it up pretty nicely, although there is not a single LGBT-related news item mentioned.
So if you weren't paying attention (and who could blame you), this is what the heteros were up to in 2009.
A big thanks to my sister Jane for bringing this site to my attention again.
When my partner, Paul first showed it to me a few months ago, I wanted to add it to my "Cool Site of the Week" roster, but put it off because it just hits too close to home. We get people like this on my job at Schminko's too and I hate bringing my work home with me.
Let me say up front that I hate shopping at Walmart. It's too big, too crowded and they never have enough registers open. Then there's the issue of not paying their employees a livable wage in order to keep prices low and putting locally owned shops that can't compete out of business.
On those few occasions when I've been forced to shop at Wally World because I just couldn't find what I wanted anywhere else, I've made it as short a trip as possible, mainly because of all the trashy people that gather there. I try to be open-minded and understand that people are people, but the people of Walmart are in a class by themselves. These aren't Dan and Roseanne Conner, these people are real and they're scary.
That's where Peopleof Walmart.com comes in. This site celebrates white trash in a way that nobody else has done. It doesn't rely on lame attempts at comedy with badly written jokes. It doesn't have to. In a testament to the notion that sometimes comedy writes itself, this site just posts pics of every day Americans being their trashy selves in their natural habitat.
The next time you feel the urge to shop at Walmart, visit People of Walmart from the comfort of your own Lazy Boy instead, until the feeling passes.
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