Random Musings

After the terrorist attack that left several people dead last week, this week satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo issued a new magazine, with yet another caricature of the prophet Mohammed on the cover.

Translation: All is forgiven.

The magazine, which normally sells around 30,000 copies a week, had an initial run of three million, which was subsequently upped to five million after copies were being snapped up all over the place.

Freedom of Speech lives. Je suis Charlie.

So, the other night I was watching Marry Me, a moderately funny show created by the same guy who created the very funny, and sadly canceled, Happy Endings. Still, Marry Me is good, and there are some bits of irreverence and truly funny moments like …

The week’s episode was about couples having a ‘show,’ a favorite show they watch together. And it was about how, maybe, half the couple watched the show without their other half, but what made me giggle was the gay dads on the show, and how they watch TV.

The one gay dad, Kevin, played by Tim Meadows, watched his ‘couples’ show without his husband, also Kevin, played by Dan Bucatinsky, because Dan’s Kevin was always asking so many questions that Tim’s Kevin couldn’t watch the show.

That’s me and Carlos.

We’re watching a show and Carlos will say, Oooh that’s a nice lamp or I thought she was dead or Wasn’t he in that movie we saw? You know, that movie? And I will have to stop the DVR, answer the question and then try to catch up with the story.

So, I made Carlos watch the scene and told him that was us, and he said, Which one are you?

I’m the black guy! I said. I’m black!

I imagine our neighbors wondered what the hell was going on in The Big Gay House.

PS Carlos said, Was there a Black guy?

Oy.

Good news on the Gays In Ads front: Tiffany has released a new print ad that is chic and clean and beautiful, featuring a gorgeous couple who is newly engaged.

The only difference is that the couple is composed of two men, making them the first gay couple ever featured in a Tiffany’s engagement campaign. Even better, the couple in the ad is a real-life New York couple.

The march goes on ….

Okay, so I watched Empire on Fox last week, Now, I am not a particular fan of rap or hip-hop so I wondered if I’d like the show that was dubbed Nashville Goes Hip Hop. But, it was also called Urban Dynasty so I was intrigued. 

Plus there were some hot mens in the piece, like Jussie Smollett and Rafael de la Fuente, who play a gay couple, and Trai Byers who is a piece of prime beefcake.

It also stars Taraji P. Henson in a standout role as cookie; Cookie is a spitfire, fresh from prison, wanting what’s hers and when Henson is onscreen you don’t see anyone else. She is amazing.

Sadly, it also stars Terrence Howard, playing smug and smarmy.

Check it out for the beefcake and stay for Cookie.

So, Pope Francis will be visiting the Philippines soon and with so many people on the streets, and so many traffic enforcers — some 2,000 — needed to keep things running smoothly, there was the question of what to do when nature calls? Leave your post and head for the loo? Oh hell no.

Those 2,000 traffic enforcers who will be on duty during the Pope’s visit will be required to wear adult diapers, according to Metropolitan Manila Development Authority chairman Francis Tolentino, who even encouraged people waiting to see Frankie to also wear diapers.

Oh lord. Imagine the changing tables in the restrooms. Oy.

In WTF news: McCleish Christmas Benham, the passenger who went on a drunken, violent, anti-gay rampage caught on video at DFW International Airport last fall will pay just $474 in fines.

Benham assaulted two people while yelling anti-gay epithets, before other passengers tackled him to the ground and he was arrested. He was charged with public intoxication and simple assault.

He had pleaded no contest — meaning he admitted he was guilty — but failed to appear in court which lead to the fines. The lesson learned: beat up a gay in an airport while shouting homophobic slurs and you just pay a fine. 

Don’t mess with Texas … better yet, don’t go to Texas.

Oh, the showtune queen in me is all atwitter.

There have been rumors that a  movie version of the hit Broadway musical Wicked: The Untold Story of the Witches of Oz  going around ever since the show opened eleven years ago, but now, well, it seems like it may actually happen.

Producer Marc Platt has said that a film version of Wicked could be in theaters by next year … even if the movie hasn’t been officially greenlighted yet. Steven Daldry, who directed The Hours, is said to be on board, but we, and by we I mean me, er, I, need to remember that it took 30 years to get Les Miz from stage to screen, and 27 years to get Into The Woods on film.

Still, 2016? I’m getting in line now with my Wicked t-shirt, my Wicked cap, and my Wicked mug.

Yes, I am that queen.

Out west, the Ninth Circuit of Appeals has denied Idaho Governor Butch Otter’s petition for an en banc review of the court’s decision to strike down Idaho’s same-sex marriage ban.

Still, Otter has promised that he would continue to fight against marriage equality in Idaho until he was left with no other options.

Good luck with that … dick.

In other movie news, Matt Bomer, My-Husband-In-My-Head and recent Golden Globe winner for the Normal Heart, is set to play closeted gay actor Montgomery Clift in a new HBO film.

Clift starred in classic films like The Heiress, Red River, From Here to Eternity and Judgment at Nuremberg. He died of a heart attack in 1965 at the age of 45.

It should be a great pairing of Bomer and Clift.

Again, the queen in me cannot wait!

In the wake of the attack at Charlie Hebdo last week, Congressman Randy Weber, of Texas of course, Tweeted a disgusting attack on President Barack Obama, offending what appears to be the vast majority of people who saw his tweet:

Of course, Weber was just goose-stepping along with Fox News by dragging the President through the mud for not marching in the Paris Unity Rally last weekend—and for the record, I think Obama should have been there, but I would never have compared him to Hitler, you know, because I’m not an asshat.

Weber left his stupid Tweet up for almost a day while people replied to him, calling him out on his ridiculous behavior, and then he apologized … kind of:

“I need to first apologize to all those offended by my tweet. It was not my intention to trivialize the Holocaust nor to compare the President to Adolf Hitler. The mention of Hitler was meant to represent the face of evil that still exists in the world today. I now realize that the use of Hitler invokes pain and emotional trauma for those affected by the atrocities of the Holocaust and victims of anti-Semitism and hate."

He didn’t mean to compare Obama to Hitler in a Tweet in which he compares Obama to Hitler?

Siddown Weber, you’re just another racist Texas congressman who spends most of his time kissing the ass of Fox News.

Oh, and where was your apology to the man you offended most of all, the President?

Yeah, that’s what I thought.

In other political news, the 114th Congress took office this week and the Lunatics Running The Asylum, AKA Teabaggers, no time in introducing plethora of f**kery, like:

Rep. Steve King, Iowa, introduced a resolution to repeal the Sixteenth Amendment, which authorizes Congress to levy income tax. King also introduced a resolution to repeal the Affordable Care Act … again!

Rep. Mo Brooks, Alabama, introduced a resolution to authorize Congress to sue to the president for "actions inconsistent" with his duties regarding immigration laws.

Rep. Tom Rice, of South Carolina … sigh … introduced a resolution to authorize the House to sue any member of the executive branch who "oversteps their authority" regarding immigration laws. 

Rep. Robert Anderholt, also Alabama, introduced a resolution to repeal any executive order regarding immigration reform and "restore" such actions to the federal legislature.

Rep. Bob Goodlatte, Virginia, introduced a resolution to "terminate" the Internal Revenue Code.

Rep. Andy Barre, Kentucky, introduced a resolution that would limit members of the Senate to serving two consecutive terms and limit members of the House to serving six consecutive terms; okay, I like that one.

Rep. Trent Franks, Arizona, introduced a resolution to make it a felony punishable by five years in prison to perform an abortion on a woman carrying a "pain-capable" fetus.

Rep. Todd Young, Indiana, introduced a resolution to raise the threshold for classification as a full-time worker from 30 hours per week to 40 hours per week, which would mean the end of mandated health insurance for everybody who works fewer than 40 hours, which means F**K you Middle class..

It’s gonna be a rough couple of years with the Rightwingnuts in the House … and Senate.

Randy Thomas, a former vice-president of ex-gay group Exodus International, is now embracing the fact that he’s a big old queen and showing us, once again, that being gay is not a choice and reparative therapy is a sham. He says, now:

“I have read many stories of people who have ‘come out again’ or accepted they are gay after some time in the ex-gay world. Many of their stories are compelling and well-written. But, sometimes I wish they would get to the point right off the bat. Just say it and then tell the story. So that is what I am going to do: I am gay.”

I’d say Welcome Out, and I might give you a gift or two, but after all the harm you’ve inflicted by being a self-loathing closeted queer, you don’t need a gift.

You need to give us a gift and simply go away and be gay and quiet.

Papal Props ... Slight Papal Props

It’s no secret that I am not a fan of the Catholic Church, and it’s Pope. I have this thing where I don’t like people or organizations who harbor child rapists, who give child rapists pensions for life if they just go away, who pay off victims of child rape with millions and millions of dollars that they could use for the “Lord’s work” if they would only stop harboring, protecting, and pensioning child rapists.

And I am not so fond of this somewhat new though slightly tarnished Pope Frankie either. When he first came on the scene he was virulently anti-marriage equality, and while he has evolved — much like President Obama — on the issue, he hasn’t fully come around to joining the 21st century. And, sure, he has said some nice things about The Gays, about the Church welcoming The Gays, about how The Gays have “something” to offer — other than being a scapegoat for the Church — he mostly talks but does nothing.

I am kind of an “actions speak louder than words” kinda gay, but, for today, I’ll give Frankie some props.

See, last year Pope Frankie removed Cardinal Raymond Burke — a very conservative American cardinal who doesn’t seem to care for Frankie very much — off the Vatican's powerful Congregation for Bishops, which deals with appointments of bishops worldwide, and then last week Cardinal Burke was removed as the leader of the Vatican’s highest court and re-appointed to a ceremonial position — which, I think, means he gets to keep the wardrobe — as chaplain of the Knights of Malta, a charity group.

And that demotion — though I wonder if it involves a pay decrease — is rather significant because generally the position of Patron of the Order of Malta is given to a retired cardinal, or offered as a second task to an active cardinal.

Still, the move is no surprise to anyone who’s watched the Vatican since Frankie moved his Prada slip-ons into the Royal, er, Papal closet.  After Frankie suggested that The Gays not be treated as less than, as the scourge of the Church, Burke strapped on his heels and pushed hard for the Vatican to revise and water-down its tentative step — really a non-step since nothing happened — toward greater acceptance of LGBT people.

Then he criticized Frankie’s questioned Francis' denunciation of excesses of capitalism — meaning Burke was all about the Benjamin’s and the cushy lifestyle of Cardinal — and then he gave an interview in which he called Frankie’s leadership “a ship without a rudder.”

So, it was really no surprised that Frankie kicked him to a less desirable curb.

And, like I said, while I’m no fan of the Church and the Pope, I’ll give him props for attempting to clean house ... with a whisk broom.

Pope Francis Demotes Outspoken Conservative Cardinal

Hard-line US cardinal loses another Vatican job

Random Musings

Out in Indiana, anti-equality GOP Governor Mike Pence — who might make a run at the White House in 2016 — issued a memo ordering state agencies not to recognize the hundreds of same-sex marriages that took place in the brief period when marriage equality was legal and before a stay was ordered.

Asshat. And I cannot wait for what he’ll say, or how he’ll spin it, when the courts order equality to stand. How quickly might he change his tune in his bid at the presidency?

Flip-flopping asshatted tool.

Speaking of marriage ….

Last weekend I updated my Facebook status to tell friends and family that Carlos and I would be getting married this October:

Well, after fourteen looooooooong years together, Carlos and I have decided that, in the words of the immortal Barbra Streisand and Donna Summer, "Enough is enough is enough is enough is enough is enough ... it's enough" and we will be getting married this October. Who would ever saw that coming, eh?

And we received some lovely wishes from friends and family all over the globe, but there was one message that was, well, unexpected and eerie.

I noticed that I had a couple of personal messages and checked them out. One was from a friend just wanting to chat, but the other was just a smiley face ,,, from my sister.

Now, to be clear, the simple smiley face was sent by my sister as a sign-off to a chat we’d had back in December, two months before she passed away; and I had seen it back then, but how wonderfully eerie and sweet that, for whatever reason, it was once again listed as a new message right after I announced that Carlos and I were gettin' hitched?

My big sister is still looking out for me …

Oh geez, won’t this woman ever go away?

It seems that after The View fired Jenny McCarthy and Sherri Shepherd, the Mama Grizzly Bore™ weighed in the topic suggesting that she would be a good addition to the program.

Asked by a reporter — possibly from the lame-stream media she says she loathes — if she had any interest in doing a "political talk show," MGB™ replied, "I hear everyone recently got canned from 'The View,' maybe a show like that needs a punch of reality and a voice of reason from America's heartland to knock some humble sense into their scripts. You know, someone willing to go rogue."

By rogue she means, put the final nail in the coffin of a show that should have died years ago.

I am a goofball. I like to make jokes all the time, about anything and everything; sometimes cute little jokes and sometimes the most offensive things imaginable just to get a reaction out of people.

Carlos, on the other, while he has a fabulous sense of humor, isn’t so keen on being a goofball and the other night I tried to break him out of that shell.

See, there’s a commercial for Tropicana orange juice where you hear Debbie Reynolds and Donald O’Connor sing “Good Mornin’” from  Singing in the Rain  and I always, always, sing along with it, adding some jazz hands for effect.

The other night I asked Carlos to sing it with me and he refused. I begged, pleaded, cajoled, threatened and he still said ‘No.’

I accused him of being uptight, and he uttered, in a somewhat high-pitched voice tinged with an English accent:

“I am not upt-i-i-i-i-ght.”

I said, “Who are you supposed to be? Dame Judy Dench?”

He said, “Maybe.”

I said, “Sounds more like Dame Judy Clench.”

PS I’m still waiting for him to sing to me.

Last week Pope Frankie met with six victims of pedophile priests; his first such meeting since becoming The Head Cheese last year. He said that Catholic bishops "will be held accountable" for failing to protect children from sexual abuse, but made no move as to how this would work, leading many, including myself, to think this was just a media moment and means nothing in the long run.

Sure, I’m cynical about the Catholic Church protecting children from priests who rape them, but that’s because they haven’t shown any action at all in that area. It’s all lip service, though I am hoping Pope Frankie proves me wrong.

Madonna was called to jury duty this week in New York and appeared an hour late — some say she was told to show up late to avoid the crowds and the sensation that a fading pop singer who fails to act her age, might receive.

Madge, who had been excused in May thanks to a doctor’s note :::coughcough::: plastic surgeon :::coughcough:::  was surrounded by her security team as she entered the clerk’s office and not the regular jury assembly room. She was immediately excused because there were ‘ample jurors’ and she was also bypassed because her presence was causing a commotion.

Watch licking her armpits again? Calling her son the N-word? Posting a dozen or some Photoshopped pictures to Instagram? Because that would be Madge on jury duty; it would be all about her.

So, I watched some of the World Cup these past weeks, though without the fervor of most in the world, and many in this country; I do, however like, all the man-on-man groping and kissing and tugging down of the shorts, making the games seem almost soft-core porn.

Speaking of which …

I often caught ESPN’s panel of experts talking about the games and the winners and losers and there, right in the middle, was one gorgeous man, whom I assumed, because of his coloring was Latino—and you all know how I feel about the Hispanic Mens.

Michael Ballack was his name, and he was a former soccer player from Germany. Yes, he looks Hispanic but he’s German.

And oh so delicious.

Enough with the actual games, give me more recaps.

Julie Bindel — don’t worry, I never heard of her either — wrote a book called  Straight Expectations in which she argues that sexual orientation is a choice.

Well, except for her, I guess, because she said this …

“All I know is I’ve never been convinced by a scientific argument, or seen any evidence that is compelling that there is something innate about our sexuality. What I’m suggesting is, there are people who could go one way or the other and happily choose to be lesbian or gay.”

And then she said this about her choosing to be gay …

“Because I needed to leave home – there was nothing there for me in Darlington – and pursue my feminist possibilities, that meant starting a new life and all that was open to me. I fell in with a crowd [in Leeds] who spoke about lesbianism as part of women’s liberation. I never chose to be attracted to women.”

Huh. So she says I chose to be gay because there is no proof that it could be any other way and then says she didn’t choose it at all.

Siddown asshat.

District Court Judge C. Scott Crabtree on Wednesday ruled that Colorado’s 2006 voter-approved ban violates the state and federal constitutions. He immediately put his ruling on hold pending an appeal.

Welcome to equality Colorado.

The march goes on …

This one makes me laugh … because, well, dumb.

Liberal Democratic Russian Parliament Member Roman Khudyakov has asked Russia’s Central Bank to change the 100 ruble note because, according to him, it “clearly” shows Apollo’s genitals and that runs afoul of Russia’s ban on exposing children to The Gays.

Khudyakov  complained that “intimate parts of the body” were visible on the banknote, which he says should have an “18+” rating under the anti-gay law.

I thought this was the height of stupidity, thinking that a statue on a piece of money would make the children gay but then I learned that in 2011 the real statue of Apollo, at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, was also censored when the exposed genitals were covered by a fig leaf.

Khudyakov doesn’t seem to think that Apollo’s microscopic penis on the currency might encourage lesbians to go straight.

Seriously.

Random Musings

Okay, so last Sunday we made the trek to CostCo to stock up on essentials. We go about every five weeks to buy chicken and fish and, of course, toilet paper, household products, milk, bread, anything that we can use in the next five weeks. That way we only shop weekly for fresh produce or items we cannot find at CostCo.

And the shopping is always fun because I make the list; I take inventory on what’s in the house, and what may, or may not, last the next five weeks. And I do the driving up and back because, well, I’m a control freak and no one, no one, drives better than I do. And, at CostCo, I push the cart; I fill up the cart.

Carlos finds things we can’t live without — like, say, a five-pound block of Bleu Cheese; and he visits the snack ladies, though not, as Anne Marie wondered, because he likes the ladies, but because he likes free stuff.

While wandering down an aisle I noticed this display of hand-woven baskets and mats made by women in Rwanda, and stopped to look. They were beautiful, all colors and patterns, and as I read a brochure I learned that a portion of the money made from the sale goes back to the women of Rwanda for education and medical treatments and the like. To me, it was a win-win; something pretty and functional and a donation to charity.

I picked up one of the mats that could be used as a trivet to set hot dishes on and saw that it was $15; I asked Carlos if he liked it, and he did, but then he found another he liked and suggested we get both. He also saw a basket he wanted and, well, it was $37, and into the cart it went.

At the checkout line the cashier totaled up the bill and it came out much bigger than we normally spend and Carlos, in that high-pitched shriek that he has, said, “Why so much?”

I explained that the basket and mats were roughly seventy dollars and, nearly fainting, he said that was s too much. But, as I reminded him that he has no trouble spending $45 on a block of cheese that would be gone on three weeks and that these mats and basket would last forever, along with a cold compress on the neck, a few loving pats on the back, and some It’ll be okay murmurings, he seemed to settle and we were on our way.

Thankfully the good folks at CostCo didn’t have to call the paramedics to calm him down. Not again.

Remember when Pope Frankie said he didn’t judge gay people and gay people swooned and said maybe the Catholic Church was changing?

Well, I didn’t. I took a wait-and-see approach and maybe I’m glad I did because last week Frankie held a private mass with Ludovine de la Rochere, the president of France's viciously anti-gay Manif Pour Tous, a group which held many massive and at times violent, rallies during the battle for marriage equality in France. In a statement, de la Rochere said she was invited to participate in a private Mass with the Pope:

"I was placed in the middle of the meeting, but someone picked me before the start of the Mass, wondering if I was the president of the Manif Pour Tous, to put me at the forefront of the faithful along the aisle, just behind the priests." 

It should not go unnoticed that during this Mass just thirty people are allowed inside and it clearly means that Pope Frankie wanted to meet Rochere and honor Manif Pour Tous.

Just sayin’.

I am not a fan of Ricky Martin. I mean, he’s kinda handsome, but sometimes he’s just too much all at once, but that’s just me.

Still, I can’t help but point out that, moment while performing at the Mawazine World Rhythms Festival in Morocco last week, Martin altered the lyrics of a popular love song from "she" to "he," thereby taking a stand for LGBT rights in a country where you can be sent to prison for being gay.

Ricky sang:

“It’s the way he makes me feel; it’s the only thing that’s real,

It’s the way he understands, He’s my lover, he’s my friend

When I look into his eyes it’s the way I feel inside

Like the man I want to be, He’s all I ever need."

That’s powerful stuff to sing in a country where, under article 489, being gay is a crime punishable by imprisonment. Now, while a gay community in Morocco and arrests are few, just a month ago six men were jailed for being gay.

Nice job Ricky.

If you say you’ve never seen hottie Bobby Holland Hanton, you might have to think again.

He’s been in the movies just six years, first appearing in 2008’s Quantum of Solace, but he’s also been in the Batman series, the Thor series, the Green Lantern film, and the other Bond films. He’s even in the battle scenes in Maleficent.

Not as an actor, or the star, but as a stunt man and stunt double, though, as hot as he looks, both clothed and shirtless, maybe he should be closer to camera.

Just sayin’.

While a lot of corporations take their enormous profits and give the bigwigs giant raises and dividends, Starbucks is doing something different.

The coffee giant has announced that it will pay for thousands of its workers to take courses through Arizona State University to complete their bachelor's degree via the Starbucks College Achievement plan which will allow 135,000 full- and part-time workers to choose from 40 undergraduate degree programs at ASU and take courses online.

CEO Howard Schultz:

"There's no doubt the inequality within the country has created a situation where many Americans are being left behind. The question I think for all of us is, 'Should we accept that, or should we try to do something about it? … We can't wait for Washington."

Best of all? Workers do not have to commit to remaining with the company after graduation.

Nicely done, Starbucks.

So, the GOP is so afraid of Hillary Clinton running for president that they’ve pulled out the big guns to do battle.

A man in a squirrel suit. Yes, that’s what I said: a man in a squirrel suit. And he apparently goes around saying, and this is high-larious, "Another Clinton In The White House Is Nuts."

This from the Bush-Cheney party? Really? But that’s not the whole joke. The squirrel showed up at one of Hillary Clinton’s book signings for Hard Choices and Hillary confronted the squirrel to hand him a signed copy of her book.

And the squirrel thanked her on Twitter.

Oh you wacky folks at the GOP. Even your squirrel is a Clinton fan!

We finally watched The Normal Heart this week, after having a free HBO weekend from AT&T and I’m so glad we saw it. Such a powerful film of such a horrible time in this country when men were dying and our own government couldn’t be bothered to step up.

All the performances were amazing, though, naturally, Mark Ruffalo, playing the Larry Kramer-inspired character, and Matt Bomer were standouts.

But the part that got to me the most was the speech by Tommy Boatwright — played beautifully by openly gay actor Jim Parsons of The Big Bang Theory — at the funeral of a friend, when he wondered about all those men who died, and what they might have contributed to the world, the plays they might have written, the songs unsung, the art unshared.

Such a gorgeous film of such a horrendous time in our — both the LGBT community and the country— lives.

And just to be clear, as it was stated at the end of the film, AIDS is  far from over, as there are 6,000 new cases of HIV diagnosed every single day, and that 36 million people have died since the epidemic began.

Thirty-six million people in thirty-three years. That’s almost three thousand people each day.

Every day.