Ohmigod, I can't believe I almost missed an amazing landmark in history. Luckily I spotted a few proud headlines at various online news sites:

• Rolling Stone announces that "Michael Stipe came out, identifying himself as 'queer,' two decades ago today."


• Joe.My.God celebrates "Michael Stipe On 20 Years Of Being Out."


• Salon blares, “Queerness is a state of mind: Michael Stipe on the anniversary of his coming-out."

Of course, it's possible these news sites might have missed this too had Mr. Stipe not reminded them. He thoughtfully recounts his groundbreaking admission in Britain's The Guardian newspaper. "It’s been 20 years since I announced to the world that I was queer," he opens, not shyly recalling his bravery.

Wow, I remember it like it was yesterday. As I recall, though, he didn't exactly say he was "queer." Or "gay." Or "homosexual." But I remember how brave we all thought he was to admit to the world that unlike 60% of America in the 1990s, he was definitely not entirely straight.

He was an "equal opportunity lech," he'd actually said, before refusing to define himself as gay, straight or bi. From that day forward it was like the world had changed. Michael Stipe had made history! Why, we'd never heard anything like it! He was the very first person ever who'd refused to define himself sexually as long as you didn't count Richard Deacon, Paul Lynde, Liberace, or any of the effeminate characters played by Edward Everett Horton or Franklin Pangborn in those 1930s films.

Mr. Stipe's announcement had such an immediate impact on my life. I was a fan of his who'd been out for years, and I'd had a crush on him. I'd heard the rumors and kept my fingers crossed. How the world spun on its axis when I realized that he'd actually kind of admitted that he'd once gotten drunk and spotted a guy that was maybe sort of hot.

I mean, put this into perspective. This was 1994, and there was a terrible danger to announcing sexual ambiguity: a performer could find himself almost too popular. Still, even the hetero singers risked it. Mr. Stipe's trailblazing came a mere twenty-two years after David Bowie came out as bi, fourteen years after Mick Jagger played an effeminate cross-dressing bisexual in Performance, and just twenty years after the New York Times declared Lou Reed to be "publicly gay." Just sixteen short years after the Tom Robinson Band sang "(Sing If You're) Glad To Be Gay," Mr. Stipe was singing, "Chicken trainwreck sombrero termites, ukulele marmalade cats."

I remember getting chills trying to imagine how things would change for the next generation! How emboldened they would be by a major star's admonition that he'd once seen a man who was kind of attractive and he told his girlfriend and she was like, "Whaaa?"

With this twentieth anniversary, Mr. Stipe cements his place in the queer history book, provided "queer" means "strange or odd." And clearly his selfless sharing hasn't been entirely altruistic. Age has brought him wisdom along with an almost poetic writing power. In The Guardian he shares how much that semi-coming-out changed his life, and it's remarkably powerful. I think we all secretly envy the man whose heart is an all-embracing, foundational tenet that accepted its own truth: that though it really, really loves women, there are maybe a couple of guys he'd kind of do.

New York's Incredible Diversity To Be Represented By Skinny Young White Woman

Story.

Distracting New York From Ebola Crisis, Hundreds Of Newly-Arrived Africans Who Weigh A Hundred And Ten Pounds Will Run Through City Streets

Yup, those are definitely the symptoms for being either a terrorist assassin or an adult.

Crime Watch

A 25-year-old woman took an Australian tourist’s $25,000 Rolex and hid it in her vagina after an early morning hookup in a Manhattan hotel room, officials said.

Brenton Price was getting a massage from Shacarye Tim when he noticed his Rolex missing. Tims tried to run off but Price caught her in the lobby. He held her for police, who saw her take the Rolex “out of her vaginal cavity."

I'm thinking Rolex should start using another watchmaker's motto. I mean, this thing definitely took a licking and kept on ticking.

WalMart's "Big And Tall" Men's Pants: 38 Choices For Fat Dudes, 0 Choices for Tall

Give them a look here.

The Catholic Church is acting weird again. Considering that Jesus died about two thousand years ago, it's odd that everything they stand for keeps changing every five minutes or so. In the case of marriage equality and/or gay rights, it's like they're playing Good Cop/Bad Cop with us. "Everybody's cool!" says the Pope. "Everybody is part of God's kingdom!" "Except for the homos!" add the Cardinals.

Last week a press release made clear just how far we'd come. An interim report, supposedly directed by the Pope himself, showed a sea change in the Church's attitude toward gays (though of course they don't actually use that word):

Homosexuals have gifts and qualities to offer to the Christian community. Are we capable of providing for these people, guaranteeing [...] them [...] a place of fellowship in our communities? Oftentimes, they want to encounter a Church which offers them a welcoming home. Are our communities capable of this, accepting and valuing their sexual orientation, without compromising Catholic doctrine on the family and matrimony?...

Without denying the moral problems associated with homosexual unions, there are instances where mutual assistance to the point of sacrifice is a valuable support in the life of these persons. Furthermore, the Church pays special attention to [...] children who live with same-sex couples and stresses that the needs and rights of the little ones must always be given priority.

Naturally hysteria ensued soon after, and literally minutes later that study was being disavowed by literally anyone with a hat or red Prada slip-ons. When this report surfaced next, the message seemed markedly different. I haven't been able to find a translation for the Italian but some maintain it doesn't include quite as much acceptance for the LGBT community as the original version.

E 'un abominio! Si Dio desirio l'uomo di sexo que l'uomo, Dio ha manufatturo Adam e Steve! Glorioso Dio, los homos! Lo qui fucko, fucko, fucko, sempre droppa di soapa. Uno e per eternite, el reigno del Dio es tutto "no homo." Progresso (non la zuppa) esta uno slopo slipperio. Le mondial requisite duo-l'uomo esposo como un Ferrari requisite un transmision automatique. Que es prossimo? Le chien esposo el pollo? El gato esposo la pesce? Non requisito uno Einstein a comprendere: el buttocks molto "EXIT ONLY."

In breve, donne-moi un fuckin' break. Es claro como mi Baccarat cristallo: Il Glorioso Dio desirio sexo sameo matrimonio que il Papa desirio Payless hueraches.

Halloween Costume Ideas For Gay Men

Sexy Superhero

Sexy Gladiator

Sexy Astronaut

Sexy Zombie

Sexy Animal

Sexy Adam and Steve

Sexy Beer Pong

Sexy Pizza Box

Michael Keaton Finally Has A Reason To Get Up And Wear A Scarf Again

I'm not a real superstitious or optimistic or pleasant person but I got a letter in the mail today that's got me really excited. I mean, ordinarily I'm a skeptic, but everything in the letter sounded true, and it got me wondering. Could something so simple change a person's life so drastically? It seems like it did, just judging from news reports. Here's what it said:

Today is your lucky day. While the other mail you receive will just be junk or bills, this letter brings you something far more exciting. It has been touched by fourteen people from Liberia and may be teeming with the Lucky Ebola virus.

You will receive good luck within four days provided you rub this letter against yourself and then send it on. BUT copies of this letter must leave your hands within 96 hours.

A United States Air force officer received this letter and didn't send it on. John A. Elliot didn't receive a promotion because he broke the chain. In the Philippines, Genio Welsh threw away this letter without reading it. Three days later his dog was attacked by a skunk.

Photocopy this letter twenty times and rub it against the original to transfer the Ebola magic. Then send the copies to friends and associates. After a few days you will get a surprise. This is true even if you are not superstitious.

Dr. Nancy Snyderman never got a fair shake. While other celebrity doctors were jetting around the world to fashionable London or Paris, NBC made her go to Liberia. After her cameraman came down with Ebola, though, the pitiful pumpkin turned into Cinderella. Almost overnight she went from wandering through dirty, dangerous streets to sitting in an ultra-luxurious car getting food from one of New Jersey's most popular restaurants. "I'm not a superstitious person," she admitted, "but even I became convinced of the awesome magic that is Ebola. Just think: two days ago I was wandering a Godforsaken cesspool of disease and today I'm in a Mercedes eating some of the most delicious clam chowder on the East Coast!"

As a hospital nurse, Amber Vinson treated the first man to die in the U. S. of the disease. And just one day later she was jetting across the country to make wedding plans. "I still can't believe it," she gushed. "All I had planned for this weekend was feeding my cats and reading Hello! magazine. But then I touched the Lucky Ebola and now I'm trying on wedding dresses in Cleveland's most popular wedding shop!"

Just days after coming into contact with the bodily fluids of an Ebola victim, a Texas health-care worker found herself on a Carnival Cruise ship sailing the Caribbean. "I was a skeptic too," said the anonymous lady as she readied herself for another quick zip down the ship's water slide. "I've spent most of my life carrying around sick peoples' piss and poop but last night I was in the ship's nightclub boogeying the night away!"

What wonderful fate will befall you if you share the magic Ebola with your friends and neighbors? Possibly nothing. But you just might end up on a surprise trip. You just might find yourself on a crowded cruise. And you just might find yourself in a Mercedes eating soup. Scoff if you want about this letter, but you cannot deny the awesome power of the Lucky Ebola.

It truly works!

Anyway, wish me luck. Call me crazy but I'm rubbing the letter against my pants as we speak. Because what's the harm in trying? Cross your fingers and I just might not be here next week.

New Jersey Shooting Victims Just 9% Less Guilty Than The Shooters

Story.

Lucky Rampaging Meth Head Breaks Into TWO Houses Where There Are Guns Lying Around

Story.

Scientists: We Can't Believe How Stupid Americans Are To Fear A Horrific Epidemic That's Totally Under Control But Spreading

Story.

I'm a huge fan of Max Garcia's Between the Lines, a comic strip that runs daily in the New York Daily News. I mean, just when you think you've seen the last of Princess Leia running around with cinnamon buns on her ears, there she goes again. His remarkable teenaged brain runs the gamut from Batman references to Superman references. (His farts have gotta be epic, amirite?) Count on Mr. Garcia to reinforce all the best gender stereotypes, whether it's the wimpy tattoo artist who's going to get creamed by a hunky bruiser for tattooing GREG instead of MEG on his arm or how all those bitchy dildo-wielding women dump us nice guys for being shrimps downstairs.

Today, though, Max goes above and beyond. He wisely waited a few minutes until domestic violence faded from the headlines to print this hysterical strip. A man sees a cow wearing a skirt and decides to kill it with an axe. Because sometimes you just want to kill a female cow with an axe. Is the cow heading to a local boutique? Waiting for a bus? We'll never know. And she'll never see that axe coming either! Ha!

Anyway, I had to share it because I enjoyed it so much. Skirt steak! Such a great turn of phrase: it's gotta be what frat boys call sorority sisters before they drug their drinks. On his Facebook page Mr. Garcia says, there's "[n]o such thing as bad publicity," so I'm hoping, like his dead skirt-wearing cow, he'll be in heaven today.

Ever since I was a kid I wondered about natural gas. First, what's up with the name? Is there an unnatural gas? I don't recall the last time somebody invented a new one. I thought we were pretty much stuck with the ones that have been around since the Big Bang.

Plus, it strikes me as a right-wing kind of name. It posits itself as the one correct gas, while subtly calling all the others inferior. When United dubbed itself "The Friendly Skies" it implied that all other airline flight attendants were backstabbing bitches. When Bounty called their paper towels "The Quicker Picker-Upper" it made it seem like you're going to sit there and whistle while waiting for Brawny to work. We're the natural gas, they're saying. Like all the other gasses have been hanging around dark alleys looking to bugger Nancy Boys.

What about methane? Argon? Neon? Helium has been around since the beginning of time, accounting for 24% of the universe, and it hasn't exactly been loitering by the docks waiting for ships to come in. Why isn't it "natural" gas?

This "natural" gas is the stuff that's piped into our homes to power our stoves and our water heaters. It's cheap and flammable, so it makes sense for all those controlled fires we need. Back in 600 BC the Chinese stuck bamboo poles into the ground to channel the stuff into their kitchens, and basically that's still what we're doing today. One characteristic of natural gas, though, is seen as problematic: it's completely odorless. Which seems like a good thing, because I don't necessarily want to pipe stuff that smells like rotting wombats into the vicinity of my new Zwilling saucepans. But when gas pipelines inevitably leaked, nobody knew. There was no telltale sign. Everything seemed perfectly fine until somebody lit a match and the whole neighborhood went boom.

The industry's brilliant solution? Make natural gas really stink. Then a leak becomes obvious, and the pipe can be fixed before anybody gets hurt. Utility companies started adding a chemical odorant called “mercaptan” to natural gas. It smells like rotting cabbages and smelly socks, and is one of the chemicals responsible for the foul smell of bad breath and flatulence.

Which raises an important question. How are you supposed to smell it in New York?

I ask this with utmost sincerity, as buildings explode around me left and right. Maybe in the rest of the world these disgusting scents would make one stand up and take notice, but in New York one simply has a fleeting thought that Big Orphan Annie walked by their window again and then their house goes boom.

If anybody in my neighborhood ran around screaming, "IT'S A HORRIBLE SMELL! I SMELL A HORRIBLE SMELL!" every single person would think they were crazy. It's like screaming, "OHMIGOD! I SAW A LIBRARY!" or "THAT MAN'S GOT A PONYTAIL!" It's not news. It's not out of place. At best, one helpful soul might say, "I'll bet the Food Bank is handing out asparagus again."

The overwhelming city odors are the worst in summer. Everything dead in the streets thaws out, and everybody even reasonably athletic breaks out their tank tops. The stink isn't quite as bad in winter, but gangrene can't exactly hop a plane to Florida. Even then, I can't imagine a whiff of rotting cabbage prompting action, or smelly socks raising an alarm. It'd be a never-ending cycle: somebody calls 911 to report farting, the farter calls about their bad breath, and so on. Five minutes later an overloaded phone system causes all the lights to go out and then cars start careening off the Brooklyn Bridge.

My solution? Make natural gas smell good. Sweet. Perfumey. We're five minutes away from New Jersey, and there ain't exactly rose gardens and Twinkie factories around here. Make natural gas smell like chocolate chip cookies. That's a smell we don't get. Mrs. Fields and Famous Amos hit the road back in 1972 when even eighteen bucks a cookie wasn't enough to pay the rent.

The best part is, it automatically creates action. It enlists the city's bored teenagers into Certified Leak Detectors. They'll smell the cookies and wander through the house trying to find the source. "Hey, mama!" they'll shout, "When are those cookies gonna be done? I want a cookie. Give me a goddamn cookie." Their mothers will shout back from the couch, "What the fuck are you talking about? I'm not making any goddamn -- RUN FOR YOUR LIFE! THE WHOLE PLACE IS GONNA BLOW!"

Sure, people could abuse it. People who know how slow the police usually respond would whip up a batch of cookies to get a car to their house stat:

PERSON #1: Ohmigod! I've been stabbed!

PERSON #2: Nooo! Quick: bring me half a pound of butter and two eggs.

Of course, scamming the system like that could lead to complaints.

POLICEMAN: You've really got to stop doing that.

STABBING VICTIM: Faking an emergency?

POLICEMAN: No, putting pistachios in these.

Why I'm Not Going To See "The Judge" Starring Robert Downey Jr.

Scene From The Judge (Paraphrased):

LAWYER: I'm trying to find the best jury possible to try my father, who's been wrongly accused of a crime, so I'd like to know a little bit about you. Do you have any bumper stickers on your car?

POTENTIAL JUROR #1: "Wife and Dog Missing. Reward for Dog."

POTENTIAL JUROR #2: "Gun Control Means Using Both Hands."

POTENTIAL JUROR #3: "I'm Still Missing My Ex-Wife, But My Aim's Getting Better."

LAWYER: Thank you. You are all excused.

Scene From Real Life:

LAWYER: I'm trying to find the best jury possible to try my father, who's been wrongly accused of a crime, so I'd like to know a little bit about you. Do you have any bumper stickers on your car?

POTENTIAL JURORS (in unison): Nope!

LAWYER: Oh. Okay.