No Guru, No Disciple, Part One

Until last weekend, I'd assumed Christopher Isherwood had faded into history. At the local library, though, I saw an announcement for a panel discussion of the new film "Chris and Don: A Love Story" -- to be attended by Chris' partner of thirty-something years, Don Bachardy -- and I knew I couldn't miss it.

The event was an absolute lovefest. Chris was a brilliant writer, a generous teacher, a devoutly religious man. Sure, he picked up Don on a Santa Monica beach when the former was 48 and the latter was 18. Or was he 16? But theirs was a love story for the ages that just had to be put on film.

Chris just loved young men, filmmaker Guido Santi declared. He loved their "violent opinions." They reminded Chris of his youth. And filming couldn't have been easier. They had access to everything. Nothing was off-limits. What honesty everyone had shown!

What a pile of crap, I thought.

Many years ago I went to college to get a math degree. Between studying and working full time, I was burning the candle at both ends. To buy myself a little peace and quiet -- and to learn something that might have the slightest relevance to my life -- I signed up for a Gay Literature class. How hard could it be? I thought. Read a book, then discuss. Not exactly trying to reconstruct the proof of Fermat's second theorem.

Michael, one of my classmates, was a lead member of the clique that produced the school's gay quarterly. We weren't exactly friends -- he was a May Sarton to my John Rechy -- but one day he just casually let drop that he was going to interview Christopher Isherwood, in the way you casually mention your parents gave you a Firebird for your birthday. Being the world's biggest Isherwood fan, I went temporarily insane. I told Michael I'd do anything if I could tag along. I'd cook him dinner, I'd wash his socks, I'd type up the whole interview for him. Michael agreed to the bribe.

Bubbling with excitement, we drove out to Isherwood's house in a secluded part of Santa Monica Canyon. Mr. Isherwood, casually dressed and apparently alone, met us at the door and led us into the living room. We talked about everything under the sun, from his childhood to his writing to his adherence to Vedanta, a Hindu religion. After about an hour, I worked up the courage to ask a slightly more difficult question. About his personal life.

Now, even at this point I had issues with Isherwood. His work, while beautiful, was completely closeted. He was known as a gay writer, but his characters were sexless rather than gay. The female protagonists would bunk up with the Navy while the male lead sat in a cafe and stared out the window. I'll admit that most works of this period were similarly closeted but James Baldwin and Gore Vidal had the guts to push the boundaries a bit.

I thought it was a harmless topic. I'd had vast numbers of insignificant relationships and not a single long-term one, so I asked an old man about his. Did he think gay couples needed to follow the heterosexual model of monogamy? If so, did he think we were capable of it?

The pair shot me a horrified look, like I'd ejaculated bodily fluids onto the cashmere carpet. "Do you speak German, Chris?" Michael asked.

Mr. Isherwood said yes, and the pair started conversing in German. For two, three, four, five minutes. It's pretty clear you've done something wrong when people switch to a language you don't know. They were both clearly offended, but I thought their reaction had me beat. There are several thousand tactful ways of telling somebody they've overstepped the bounds of propriety. Talking about them in a foreign language isn't one.

They wrapped up their little conversation, bonding with a mutual distaste for my prying, and I wanted the floor to open up. I stayed quiet for the rest of the night. I'd brought along a biography of Isherwood, intending to ask him about some of it, but instead I just asked for his autograph. "You know I didn't write this, right?" he asked.

Oh great, I thought. I'm stupid now.

SWF, 5' 7", 60 pounds

Maybe I'm sensitive, since I could stand to lose a few hundred pounds, but it seems like nearly every advertisement I see is for weight loss. Maybe these companies mean well, but I get the idea they're all just trying to make scads of money preying on our insecurities. I decided to investigate.

In the Sunday paper I saw an Ultra Slim-Fast promotion called "Picture Yourself Slimmer": you send four dollars, your full-length photo, your height, weight and the weight you'd like to be, and they'll computer-generate a photo of you at that desired weight. I sent in four bucks with the following letter:

"Hi!

I'm a model and I rely on Slim-Fast to keep my weight down. Though I'm pretty slim now, I'd like to see what I'd look like if I took off a few more pounds. But I don't want to get too slim!

So, here's a copy of a photo of me. Please let me see what I would look like 40 pounds thinner."

Oh, and I told them I was 5' 7", 100 pounds, and sent them a photo of Kate Moss I'd clipped out of People magazine.

When I was just about convinced they'd tossed out my application in horror I got my reply.

"Dear Consumer:

Ultra Slim-Fast would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your participation in our 'Picture Yourself Slimmer' Promotion.

America is finally getting the message: fat is out! We truly believe that diet and exercise are the keys to better living. Ultra Slim-Fast, one of America's favorite ways to lose weight, is proud to lead the way for consumers to take off the pounds without going hungry. As a result, you feel better, and you look terrific. We know it -- because consumers share with us their Ultra Slim-Fast success stories.

We hope your 'picture' proves to be a motivation for you to lose weight, and stay slim.

Please use the attached cents-off coupons, with our compliments, to enjoy great savings on delicious, nutritious Ultra Slim-Fast.

Slim-Fast Foods Company"

The computer-generated photo? Well, see for yourself. I think Kate still looks a bit heavy for a woman weighing 60 pounds. It's a shame -- she has such a cute face.

AC/DC's next album will be sold exclusively at Wal-Mart stores in the U.S., according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

The record is said to include several live tracks targeted specifically to Wal-Mart customers, including "You Shook Me Until Nearly Eight-Thirty" and "Dirty Deeds Marked Down Fifteen Percent."



Florida's tomato industry is in "complete collapse" after raw tomatoes were linked to 145 cases of salmonella. "We probably have $40 million worth of product we can't sell," said Reggie Brown, executive vice president of the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange.

In fact, to show you how bad things are, millions of tomatoes have actually been left in the fields until they turned red.



Next week Christie's is auctioning the world's first phone book. The directory lists just 391 names, and includes a warning against using "profane or otherwise improper language."

This thing is so old that back when it was published "Yankee Doodle" was the #1 ringtone.



The New York City Opera has commissioned Charles Wuorinen to compose an opera based on Brokeback Mountain, the short story by Annie Proulx that became the basis for a movie that won three Academy Awards.

The opera is scheduled to premiere in spring 2013, but Wuorinen says he already completed the arias "Desidero Sapevo Como Quitter Tu" and "Jacques Twist? Jacques Nasté!"

Even a Fish Can't Believe All That Damn Water

Big Apple Barbecue Block Party

The Big Apple Barbecue Block Party is wildly publicized. Every magazine and newspaper here heralds its coming, like it's a first-rate advertisement for our fair city, proof that we're the entertainment capital of the world.

Just one problem. You'd have to be an idiot to go there, because it's an absolute nightmare.

See, of the eight million people in New York, seven million are dirt poor and desperately in search of cheap entertainment. They mark inexpensive events like this on their calendars, and race to them the minute they start.

So, picture this. Seven million people. Twelve stands hawking cheap barbecue, each manned by three or four people who are more concerned with pork burning than the crowd. You can actually see this in the center photo: on the left, a tiny umbrella shields a guy with a butcher knife who cutting small parts off a pig. And on the right, nine thousand people in line who've waited four hours and are so famished they're about to grab that knife and start carving themselves.

Now, the barbecue organizers aren't total idiots. After they were overwhelmed the first year, they realized something had to be done. For Year Two, then, they sold a Fast Pass. Buy a prepaid hundred-dollar gift card, they declared, and you won't have to wait in those crazy lines.

Anyone with half a brain will realize this doesn't make sense. They need more cooks. They need more servers. They should hand out wristbands to the people in line, because it's easier to get tickets to a Madonna concert than to get a pulled-pork sandwich here. Instead, they create another line for rich people who get served before the regular folks. Just before that platter of pig is served up to the first person in the Poor Dude line, a well-dressed man will casually saunter up, hand over his pass, and take it.

Nobody in the regular line gets served until all the rich people are fed. And at three o'clock, when they finally run out of food due to "unforeseen popularity," they turn off the fires and close up.

The first guy in line -- beet red from all that time in the sun -- stares in disbelief. "Can I get an order of ribs?" he asks.

"Sorry," the chef declares as he fires up his Ford F10. "All the millionaires ate them. Catch you all next year!"

Repeat Friday: Bush vs. Putin: Who's the Man?

Holy Jesus, a political figure takes off his shirt and suddenly the whole world goes crazy.

Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, recently went on vacation to Siberia, and he went fishing with Prince Albert of Monaco. Maybe he got wet, or maybe he was just enjoying the sunshine, but for whatever reason he decided to doff his shirt.



And the entire world went nuts.

All of Russia is now in a tumult, a hundred forty-one million people in a state of shock. Women and girls are literally tearing their hair out after witnessing the brawny muscularity of the man in charge. Pravda, the country's leading newspaper, is printing photos Playgirl would reject as dicey, and fans of beefcake are stampeding news racks for glimpses of more exposed Putin flesh.

Now, some might say this reflects badly on our own president, who refuses to show any skin. Maybe he's shy; maybe he's got an "I Love Jeff Gannon" tattoo he doesn't want to bare to the world. Either way, I say to hell with them! Anybody can bench press. Anybody can do some dumbbell curls. But I hereby throw down a challenge to the Russians:

How does their man look in a dress?



Russia Goes Nuts Over Shirtless Putin

I have very few goals in life. To get the pit stains out of my 2(x)ist t-shirts, to separate my giant bag of batteries into Still Useful or Dead; to get David Sedaris to autograph my first edition of Barrel Fever. He's in town to promote his new book, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, so I get to the bookstore eighteen hours early to snag a seat in the very first row.

I sit and read for maybe twelve hours. I'm next to the Pet Care section, and unwilling to stray more than five feet from my chair, I can now safely deworm a Shih Tzu. The place is just about full, and a Barnes & Noble employee takes the stage to explain the rules. No flash photos, since eight thousand going off at once can permanently blind somebody. For autographs, they'll take one row at a time, starting with the front. Mr. Sedaris will sign just about anything except drawings we've done of him.

This hits me like an arrow to the heart. Here I've assumed I'm his biggest fan, buying Barrel Fever the second it hit the stores. I've never tried to draw him, though. I thought his crinkly eyes and cautious nose were simply uncapturable.

I continue reading -- did you know that every morning you have to clear the glands of boxers, squeezing their buttocks like Spanish limes? -- and she takes the stage again. "David's turned up early," she declares. "He's going to start signing things now." We all shriek with delight as he takes his seat behind the desk and she heads to the front row.

She asks the first person who he wants the book dedicated to. "Lurene," he replies. She writes it in big letters on a Post-It, sticks it on the title page, and sends him up to get the autograph. She moves down the row, repeating this at every seat, and by the time she gets to me she's written names on thirteen Post-Its. Mike, Kevin, Walter, Shoshanna. "Who do you want this dedicated to?" she asks me.

I've never understood this. Why would somebody want an author to personally address them in a book? He isn't giving it to them. He didn't sit there while he was writing and think, "You know, Lurene's really going to love this book. It seems pretty stupid, and even close to pitiful to pretend that you and the author are on a first-name basis. "Actually," I say, "could I get him to write something funny in it?"

She glares at me, like I've run into Gordon Ramsay on a street corner and asked him to whip me up Steak Diane. "You know, he's a writer," I say. "He should be able to come up with something."

"Why don't you think of something and he'll write it?"

"I don't want to put words in his mouth."

We stare at each other for five or ten minutes before I snap. "Okay, how about this," I say. "'Every story a classic.'" She scowls like she's swallowed a bad clam. "You know, it's kind of flattering," I continue. "I'm not asking him to write, 'I get sailors drunk and then suck on their jockstraps.' And it's only four freakin' words."

Reluctantly she writes it on a Post-It and sends me up to the stage. Mr. Sedaris sees the Post-It and I immediately backtrack. "I just wanted you to write something funny," I say.

He smiles. "Do you mind if I edit it?" he asks. I say that's fine. And as he signs it, I think, you know, I'll bet I could capture those eyes.

Repeat Wednesday: Once in a Cordon-Bleu Moon

Eating dinner in New York makes “Fear Factor” look like a church picnic. Some years ago, the residents got bored with real food and demanded the restauranteurs offer ultra-rare flora and fauna that no one had ever considered eating. Now they smugly declare themselves a culinary capital, standing in sharp contrast to the rest of the world.

Mid-America’s favorite foods come from:

(a) the freezer
(b) a bucket with the Colonel’s picture on it
(c) Olive Garden
(c) the Little Debbie display near the supermarket checkout

But a New Yorker’s favorite food is

(a) deadly unless cleaned by a licensed chef
(b) aged, uncooked meat, smuggled in through Customs
(c) found inside a sick goose
(d) dug up by a pig.

Now, we’ve got all the obligatory fast-food restaurants here, so this weirdness doesn’t affect those of us with normal appetites. But the Chelsea McDonalds isn’t a place to take a date, even if it does have a piano bar. I was seeing a guy named Anthony, though we had yet to do anything physical, and I figured I’d need to really impress him to leap over that hurdle. The city’s most expensive Mexican restaurant should do it, I convinced myself.

And today, the waiter confirmed, was our lucky day.

“We have something very special to offer you. Our chef recently returned from an excursion to Oaxaca with several ounces of huitlacoche. It is a rare, elusive fungus that grows solely in August on the south sides of mature corn stalks. As the kernels are infected, they grow large and puffy, turning gray to black as they fill with spores. It’s a rare treat, and was considered a delicacy by the Maya. The chef adds it to fire-roasted tomatoes and a fine julienne of papaya, enrobes it in a dried corn husk, then steams it especially for you.”

At this point I start thinking, buddy, you’ve got the wrong guy. You’ve got me confused with Mario Batali, or maybe Truman Capote. In fact, I’ve been scanning the menu looking for one of those frozen burritos you find at the grocery store priced at seven for a dollar. Yup, I know it works out to twelve cents a pound, and I know full well that neither meat nor potatoes nor corn costs twelve cents a pound, so obviously a brick-shaped amalgam of them shouldn’t cost less. But do I care? Nah. It’s just food. I’ll like it even if it wasn’t dug up by a pig.

Anthony, on the other hand, lights up like a chandelier. He acts like Alec Baldwin just jumped in his lap and started rotating slowly. “That sounds incredible,” he says. “I have got to have that.”

What? I thought, shaking my head like a soggy dog. Which part of “infected,” “spores” or “fungus” sounds best? I mean, if my date is going to eat diseased corn, why did I just spent the last three hours disguising a cold sore on my lip?

Unfortunately, dinner was the highlight of the evening. Saying good night at his door, Anthony looked considerably less happy than when he was eating. He shook my hand, said he’d had a nice time, and that was that. I told my friend Steve about it later, and he knew exactly what was going on. “See, average isn’t good enough for New Yorkers. If it was, we’d still be living in Boise and wearing Keds. This guy doesn’t like average, and Roman, you’re about as average as they get.”

Some people might take this as an insult, but some people don’t think Kenny Rogers makes the world’s best rotisserie chicken. “So how do I make myself look special?”

“Marketing,” Steve says. “Take Gucci, for instance. If you could just walk into any store and buy one of their handbags, nobody would pay that kind of cash. So they make a few a day, hand them out to celebrities, and tell the press they’re sold out. Everybody knows it’s just marketing hype, but it works anyway. People get into fistfights over the stuff.”

Hmm. That was mighty tempting. I mean, I couldn’t get people to fight over me if I had Al Sharpton perched atop my head. “So I should make myself scarce,” I say, to an enthusiastic nod. “Maybe stop answering the phone, make up nonexistent previous engagements, send myself flowers?”

Steve nods, and I shake my head sadly. “You know,” I say, “that advice was stupid when I read it ten years ago, in Cosmopolitan.”

Naturally Steve got angry, though only a real friend will tell you when your advice is crap. Still, the more I thought about it, the more sense it made. New Yorkers have to make a big deal out of everything. It’s not enough just to eat something: you want to eat something that’s nearly extinct, that’s prepared by an eccentric band of monks, that’s scraped at 4:24 in the morning from the teeth of sleeping hyenas. I mean, how else do you explain truffles? If they grew on trees they wouldn’t be on the menu of every restaurant here, from Le Bernadin to Taco Shack. But pigs find them underground in a small part of the south of France, only a couple months out of the year. Needless to say, most New Yorkers want them in everything, from their toothpaste to their zit creams.

It was like pulling teeth getting Anthony to go out with me again. First he said he was busy, then he wasn’t feeling well, then he had friends coming in from out of town. After a month of bargaining with his answering machine, I finally wore him down. I promised him tickets to a sold-out Broadway show, and dinner at a restaurant that had an unlisted phone number.

The night went by quickly, though the conversation didn’t exactly flow. When we got back to his place he looked at me like I was cauliflower in a world of chocolate cake. Yup, I thought -- it’s coming. The “we’re not right for each other” speech.

“Can I come inside?” I asked. What can I tell you? I’m an optimist.

He shook his head. “I’ve got to get up early tomorrow.” He unlocked his door, stepped in, and turned. “Roman,” he announced, “this isn’t working for me. I think we should call it quits.”

I gave him the big-eyed, pleading stare of a Keane waif painting, but he was resolute, and started to close the door in my face. Wait, I thought -- I can still save it. Think rare. Think elusive. Something I’ve got that’s one in a million.

“You don’t know what you’re missing, bud,” I called seconds before the door shut completely. “This is the first hard-on I’ve had since Christmas!”

From Joe.My.God:

[Scott] McClelland was reportedly paid $75,000 for his tome. A White House staffer referenced the Bible (*gasp*) in response by telling the media, "Ironically, in today's dollars that amount is worth exactly 30 pieces of silver."

According to Wiki and a Christian website, 30 pieces of silver was what a "common laborer" would have earned for working between 113 and 120 days.

Assuming this laborer pulls down a yearly salary of $50,000 today -- he lives in New York -- it's somewhere between $15,500 and $16,500.

So, memo to Bush's staffers: This is what happens when your mom dropped out of ninth grade and you were home-schooled.

Heather Has a Mommy and a Daddy, Part Two

One night there’s a dance at Heather’s school and her parents offer to chaperone. While Heather’s dancing with Danitra she sees from the corner of her eye her mom and dad moving onto the dance floor. She watches in horror as her mom just sort of stands there swaying, her gingham granny dress limply hanging to the floor. She grimaces as her dad starts chopping at the air like Jackie Chan being attacked by locusts.

Occasionally their movements coincide with the beat. Heather runs to the bathroom crying.

“Heather, don’t feel so bad,” Danitra says. “Lots of kids have embarrassing parents.” She starts to lead Heather out of the bathroom, then stops. “Um, maybe we should stay in here a while longer. They just started doing the Bump.”



One day the class projects are due. Heather brings in the model she’s made. It’s a lump of brown Play-Doh with ketchup poured over it and dotted with marshmellows stuck on with toothpicks. She sets it on the table as her teacher comes over to look.

“Why, Heather! That’s . . . nice! Very very nice!”

“What the hell is it?” Tommy asks.

“TOMMY! Heather’s parents had me over for dinner once. This is what they call ‘Salisbury steak.’”

Heather bursts into tears. “NO IT’S NOT! It’s a VOLCANO! That’s lava, and that’s steam coming out.”

Mrs. Weinberg-Lopez comforts Heather. Danitra enters and places her project next to Heather’s on the table.

“Why, Danitra, what’s this?”

Danitra delicately removes the sheet protecting her project.

“Versailles.”

Heather takes one look at the tiny replica of Louis XIV’s summer home, constructed by Danitra and her two dads out of two hundred cubic yards of teak plank, thirty square feet of gold leaf, sixty pounds of Italian travertine marble from the same quarry Michelangelo used, tiny topiary and functional miniature fountains, and cries even harder.

“Why did I have to have a mom and a dad?” Heather sobs. “Why can’t my family be like all the rest?”

Mrs. Weinberg-Lopez pulls Heather close. “Children,” she says,”every family is special, including those conforming to the rigid, stereotypical standard of male domination.” She starts to tell the class about her own family, including her hearing-impaired Hispanic mother, her height-challenged Israeli father, and her Gypsy recovering-substance-abusing brother-in-law and Armenian sex-addict half-sister, but stops, realizing the school year is only 4,074 hours long.

“Just because Heather’s parents are heterosexual doesn’t mean they’re slow-witted philistines, though there are strong correlations you don’t need a PhD in statistics to understand. But Heather is lucky to have a sweet mom and a wonderful dad and a dog named Molly and a hamster named Samson, and they all live together in a lovely house. They’ve got interesting avocado-colored appliances, carpet as long as your hair, and furniture that‘s by-and-large wood that must have taken them hours to assemble. There’s a big plastic sofa that turns into a bed, and a La-Z-Boy -- ”

“A what?” Keanu asks.

“A La-Z-Boy,” Mrs. Weinberg-Lopez repeats. “It’s a big vinyl chair that reclines.”

“Oh, man!” exclaims Keanu, covering his face with his hands. “And I thought our Herman Miller reproductions were embarrassing!”

Mrs. Weinberg-Lopez continues. “But the important thing is, they’re a family. They’re a group united for a common purpose, where each individual is given a sense of empowerment and their shared bonds are formalized in a ritualistic manner.”

“Oh,” the students respond in unison.

Everybody hugs.

THE END


If you enjoyed this story about Heather, ask your local bookseller for these titles:

“Heather’s Mom is Narcoleptic”
“Heather’s Dad Has Epstein-Barr”
“Heather’s Sister’s Problem Still Puzzles Specialists”
and the latest,
“It’s No Picnic Being Related to Heather”

He's lucky. Mine just exudes a melancholic wistfulness.

Heather Has a Mommy and a Daddy, Part One

I don't believe this. Apparently it's so fashionable to be gay, there are support books for children who have heterosexual parents.

Heather Has a Mommy and a Daddy
Deep in the heart of Dullsville, at the end of a cul-de-sac, behind a lawn of scratchy brown grass dotted with giant plastic butterflies, three flaking cement deer, and a philodendron the size of Bob Hoskins though with fewer decorative parts, lives Heather Thompson.

Heather has a mommy and a daddy. Heather’s daddy is an accountant. Her mommy is a homemaker. Before Heather was born they met, fell in love, and got married.

“I love you very much and I’m having your child,” Heather’s mom said.

Danitra is Heather’s best friend. One of Danitra’s dads is an empowerment facilitator. The other is an aura consultant. Danitra doesn’t know what they do at work, except they don’t need briefcases. Before Danitra was born her daddies met and fell in love, and after seventeen years spent discussing caring and support, handling acceptance, and negotiating intimacy, they had a commitment ceremony.

“I love you very much and I’m designing the rings,” Danitra’s Daddy Mike said.

One day in school Heather’s teacher, Mrs. Weinberg-Lopez, tells the class to draw pictures of their families.

Danitra draws two men, Julio draws two women, and Heather draws a man and a woman.

Keanu points at the woman Heather drew, with squiggly yellow hair, a crude red dress and simple brown shoes. “This dad here’s got some ugly drag going on,” he says.



At lunchtime Danitra sits on the bench next to Heather and pulls a sandwich out of a brown paper bag.

“Want to trade?” Danitra asks. “I’ve got grilled eggplant and goat cheese on marjoram foccacia.”

“Um, I didn’t bring lunch,” Heather stammers, kicking her brown paper bag out of sight. “I’m . . . uh . . . on a diet.”

“Diet?” Danitra asks. “Haven’t your dads told you not to buy into that patriarchal looks-based chauvinism? And anyway, what’s this then?” she asks, holding up the bag with “HAVE A SUPER DAY!” written in sparkle marker on it.

Julio, who was listening nearby, runs up and grabs Heather’s lunch. “Yeah, what’s this? It’s somebody’s lunch!”

Heather jumps at the bag but Julio holds it out of reach. “You give that back!” Heather yells.

“Try and make me!” Julio chides. He pulls Heather’s sandwich apart and drops it like it was electrified. He wobbles away, holding his stomach.

“Oh my God!” he cries. “There’s like dead stuff in there!”

Danitra looks at the sandwich lying on the cement. “Is that MEAT? Is that like SPAM?”

Claudia, sitting quietly at the other end of the bench, bursts into tears. “Heather’s eating BAMBI!”

“It’s friggin’ Wonder Bread!” Julio scoffs.

Keanu walks toward the bread and peers at it. “And it’s got LUBE all over it!”

“You idiot, that’s MAYONNAISE.”

“What’s mayonnaise?”

“It’s like goat cheese for heterosexuals.”

“Heterosexuals?” Keanu asks. “Heather’s mommy and daddy are heterosexuals?”

Heather starts to yell. “No! I don’t have a mommy and a daddy. I’ve got two daddies!”

“Hell-OOOO!” Danitra says, drawing the word out to twelve syllables. “We can see your clothes!”

“Um . . . “ Heather stalls, “then I’ve got two mommies.”

“And we’ve seen you play baseball,” Julio answers.

Heather, unable to think of a response, sits on the bench and starts to cry. Danitra pulls a robin’s egg blue bandana from her pocket and dabs at Heather’s face.

“Maybe your mom’s not really a woman,” Danitra offers.

“Well,” Heather says, sniffing, “she cleans the house, and cooks, and does the laundry.”

Danitra fumes. “We’re trying to establish that she’s female, not that she’s an idiot.”

“Maybe your dad’s not really a man,” Julio suggests.

“Well,” Heather answers, wiping her nose. “He’s big and strong and he’s got a moustache.”

Several of the children wonder what this proves but nobody says anything.

“So let’s say you’ve got a mom and a dad,” Keanu says. “Then where did you come from?”

Heather thinks for a minute. “They went to bed together, and then I was born.” Some of her friends express further interest, but Heather doesn’t have a brochure. “Daddy put his thing in mommy -- “

“Oh, man,” Keanu interjects. “Is that legal?”

“HelLLLLO!” sings Danitra, who gets the word up to eighteen syllables this time. “We’re in CaliFORnia!”

“And nine months later I came out of my mommy’s tummy,” Heather adds.

Several of the children wonder why they didn’t hire a surrogate with a vagina but nobody says anything.

Rachael Ray's Scarf Suspected of Offering Support to Terrorists

Wow. Next they'll find out "EVOO" is some kind of code.



A plastic surgeon has written a children's book about nose jobs, tummy tucks and breast implants. My Beautiful Mommy is designed to help four to seven-year-olds prepare for their parents' plastic surgery so they aren't shocked by the results.

In the story, a little girl's mother gets a tummy tuck, breast implants and nose job. "You see," the mother says, "as I got older, my body stretched and I couldn't fit into my clothes anymore. Dr. Michael [coincidentally, the name of the author] is going to help fix that and make me feel better."

When it comes to her nose job, the mom warns that she will look different after the bandages come off. The girl asks: "Why are you going to look different?" Mom responds: "Not just different, my dear - prettier!"

"Oh, mommy!" the daughter squeals at the end. "You look sooo beautiful! I love your new nose and new chin and new eyes and new cheeks!"

"Thank you very much, sweetie," the happy parent replies. "But I'm dad."

You Lost Me

I'm really, really glad I stopped watching Lost. See, I'm not a fan of science fiction, as I find reality interesting enough. I like what I read or watch to reflect the world, to teach me something new about people or relationships, or remind me that even a cold, hard world can still be both entertaining and fulfilling.

This doesn't often happen in science fiction. There, robots run amok until some plucky human manages to turn the tables on them. A scienist clones Hitler and he rises to power again, aided by a mind-controlling chemical infused into tortilla chips. A faraway planet named Zardox is ruled by a blonde, three-breasted supermodel in a gold lamé bikini who enslaves men for their sexual services.

No offense, but I don't think any of these are going to illuminate the mysteries of life.

For the first season, at least, it looked like Lost was reality-based. Sure, much was unexplainable. Locke, paralyzed from the waist down, regained the ability to walk. Jin was sterile but got Jun pregnant. Rose's cancer was cured. We grasped at straws. Weird electromagnetic radiation did it, we thought. Or maybe they were all just medical flukes.

The castaways started seeing and hearing things. Still possible, we maintained. Mass hallucination. Drugs. A conspiracy, and holograms.

Then a giant polar bear charged through the jungle. Oh, please! we screamed. This is preposterous!

Don't worry, the producers assured us. There's a logical explanation for everything.

And then a black pillar of smoke appeared and killed Mr. Ecko. Logical explanation my ass, I thought as I shut off the TV.

Fast forward three years later. So much more has been revealed! Logical Explanation, Part 1: some people can travel through time, and they can also make things appear and disappear at will.

I'm surprised more people aren't feeling cheated by the program. Remember how pissed off we were when, in a Dallas season finale, Pam woke up and everybody realized the entire season was a dream? Hell, that's nothing compared to Lost, where they just picked up the whole island and moved it somewhere else.

Maybe we're just getting used to being deceived, I think. Maybe Bush is responsible for all this. We were perfectly justified in attacking Iraq, he said. Just wait and see. There's a logical explanation!

Three years later: See, there was this meth lab that we thought was used to build WMDs. . . .

Me, I wish we could learn something from these deceptions, but what can the lesson be? To be more suspicious? Not to trust anybody? That's hardly progress. We have to trust. We have to hope. Which means we'll all be sitting quietly, fingers crossed, until the three-breasted chick in the gold lamé bikini appears.

According to the latest Star magazine, lovebirds Rihanna and Chris Brown "sing to each other all the time."

In fact, just this morning they sang "Did you use up all the Prell-a, ella, ella?" and "I think I might have Rubella, ella, ella."



Tony Soprano's blue boxer shorts are being auctioned by Christie's next month, and are expected to fetch $500.

You know a gay man is going to buy these things. And if there's so much as a single pube on them, there'll be more shooting than they had on the show.



Two monkeys had sensors implanted in their brains and their arms tied behind their backs to see if they could learn to control a mechanical arm using just their thoughts, a new study shows.

The monkeys eventually learned to feed themselves with the arm, after they spent eight days flipping off the scientists.



La Scala, the Italian opera house, has commissioned Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth to be turned into an opera.

You know how at the end of Tosca the title character jumps off a building? At the end of Inconvenient Truth: The Opera the entire audience does.

Repeat Thursday: Big Feet: Big Stuff or Big Bluff?

In the history of the universe, ever since Nothing turned into Something, since planets formed from cosmic dust and little green salamanders evolved into Homo Erectus, there have been exactly four studies to determine whether Big Feet mean Big Meat.

Scientists have examined virtually everything: why the sky is blue, why birds sing, why toast always lands butter side down (Svenska Joornal der Breakfaast, 1997, pp. 162-217). Why the penis ennui? When I'm hanging around some bar, trying to choose between the reasonably-attractive tall guy and the drop-dead gorgeous short guy, the last thing on my mind is dirty bread.

Gay people blame homophobia for all kinds of stuff, but I'm thinking it's involved here as well. This is the most frequently asked question of all time, surpassing even "Who killed JFK?" and "Why is Audrina Partridge famous?" A million times a day somebody asks if there's a connection, and that's just the folks who catch me in clothes.

Scientists, I'm guessing, don't want to be tarred by that "gay" feather. It's okay to grow a spare ear on the back of a mouse, or genetically merge chickens with Miracle Whip so they'll start laying egg salad. But get another man excited? That's just plain weird. What are the other scientists going to think? "That Günther, he likes the penis a little too much," they'd tell their assistants. "Now go sew these lips on that dog." And how's his wife going to feel when he comes home and recounts his day? "Honey!" he calls, setting his briefcase on the hall table, "I saw a real whopper this morning!" She might feign enthusiasm to his face, but you know she's going to tell her family he's unemployed.

Even these four studies seem a little skittish, since they all have serious flaws. The first declares there's no significant correlation between penis length and shoe size, though somehow they've avoided handling erect penises. They "gently stretch" them, like they're tight socks, and measure them that way. Because, you know, who's got the energy to get a guy hard?

I want to tell these researchers that nobody cares how stretchy penises are. I have friends who have sex with rubber plants, and friends who have sex with balloons, but I don't know anybody who wants to get screwed by taffy. Then I notice their disclaimer: they don't need to measure erections, because an earlier study showed a strong correlation between stretched length and erect length.

This sounds a little farfetched to me, so I check it out. I'll just say two things about that study: one, math is boring even with big dicks involved; and two, while the correlation between stretched and hard length was 0.793, the correlation between soft and hard length was 0.678.

Translated into English, it means guessing how much bigger a stretched penis will get is just slightly more reliable than guessing how much bigger a soft, dangly penis will get. And if that were even remotely possible, I wouldn't have cried myself to sleep three times last week.

A few months later a second group of scientists comes along, and they decide they can do better. "To hell with stretching dicks!" they proclaim. "We'll have guys measure their own!"

I'll pause here as we all laugh. Mature men with advanced degrees, wearing white coats and stethoscopes, based a study on the assumption that men wouldn't lie about their endowments. Maybe they phoned the guys and asked how long their dicks were, or maybe they shoved them into little cubicles while they waited squeamishly outside. Either way seems pretty silly to me, and I buy my cologne from Rite Aid. Doctors can remove your spleen or transplant your gallbladder or even smear a woman's pap, but getting a guy visibly excited, well . . . that's not somewhere anyone wants to go.

Anybody who's ever answered a personal ad knows how that study turned out. They didn't find any correlation between shoe size and penis length -- maybe because regardless of shoe size, everybody reported nineteen inches. Guys lie about everything, even when they know they'll get caught. "That's in dog years," they admit when you question their age. "That's on the moon," they say when you doubt their weight. As for endowment, cold weather is a popular excuse. Except I lived with one of these guys for nearly a year, and two weeks in Death Valley wouldn't have nudged him up to small.

Eventually a third research group steps into the breach. "That second study was nonsense," they decree, "so we're going to reenact the first." They stretch, they measure, and there's no correlation.

The veil is lifted slightly by our fourth and final group, though they're stretchers as well. "We think we found something in index fingers," they announce, "but we just didn't see enough penises." You can criticize these guys if you want -- they should get better funding, or try to sign up volunteers -- but I just want to buy them a beer and say, buddy, you and me both.

And so here I sit, a ridiculously tall man who gets asked three hundred times a day if big feet mean big meat. I don't like sharing my own personal data, at least until somebody's bought me a drink, so I've always said nobody knows. Now I can add a well-informed postscript: that nobody's done a study comparing erect penis length to shoe size, or finger length, or height. That the geniuses in our prestigious research institutes have more pressing things to do, like calculating the force required to shoot a sheep to the moon (Applied Ovine Ergonomics, Nov. 2002, pp. 523-81). That maybe it's time gay scientists stepped up to the plate.

Heck, I'll volunteer, if that'll help. Because when my time comes, I'd be pretty damned proud to have this on my tombstone:

Here lies RomanHans.

He wasn't a doctor, or a scientist, or even particularly smart.

But he sure wasn't afraid to get a guy hard.

Surprise

I have to do something. Every morning I wake up and it's like my eyebrows have grown just a little bit bigger, until they threaten to consume my face. It looks like two squirrels are scurrying across my forehead, and very soon there's just going be to one. Years ago, though, after an overzealous afternoon with a razor blade, I learned that shaping and tweezing your facial hair is like trying to remove your own gall bladder. This time around, I decide, I'll let a professional handle it.

I don't exactly keep up with the trends, but I know about threading. I've seen it on the news, where an Asian woman wielding something like dental floss wraps a coil around a stray hair and yanks it out, faster than the blink of an eye. While I run my daily errands I pass eight or nine threading salons, and I slow in front of every one. I feel my eyebrows swelling until I can barely keep my head up. I think, why don't I just go in and get it done?

You hear all these rumors about New York metrosexuals, but I'm the only guy in the salon I finally choose. There's so much estrogen in the building, in fact, I feel like I've accidentally stumbled into Pinkberry. Mercifully, the procedure is quick and painless. Five minutes and fifteen dollars later, the woman passes me a hand mirror. My eyebrows are far apart and half their original size. The delicate arch makes me look ever so slightly surprised.

I look at the woman. She looks at me. "Well, I think they look good," she says.

I race to the bathroom of a nearby Bed Bath & Beyond and survey the damage. They could definitely be worse. They're certainly not that 30s Jean Harlow brow, the thin Sharpie squiggle dancing below the hairline. They could almost pass for natural. Still, the arch is sharp enough to change my default expression. I'm no longer bored. I'm not exhausted. If I keep my face entirely still, I'm somewhere between inquisitive and questioning. Add in even the slightest additional surprise, though, and I look like a man fleeing Godzilla.

I run my remaining errands as I struggle to keeping my face utterly placid. Inquisitive eyebrows aren't such a horrible thing, I discover. They have the attitude that I don't, second-guessing every word I hear.

I stop at a fruit stand for a mango and some strawberries. "That'll be twelve dollars," the man says. I look at him. He looks at me. "Okay, okay," he snaps. "Maybe it's just ten."

I drop in Designer Shoe Warehouse to see what's new. There's a pair of Ecco shoes I almost like but they're clunky, and they only come in brown. "Those are absolutely perfect," a clerk says. I look at her. She looks at me. "If your girlfriend's named Rainbow and you wear fringed vests," she adds.

By the time I head home it's late, and the subway is deserted. Still, a middle-aged man sits down right next to me. His suit is cheap, his hair's thinning, his moustache nearly hides his mouth. "You should be a model," he says, just out of the blue. "I mean, you are absolutely gorgeous. You've got an amazing face, and it looks like you've got a really hot body. You could be, like, in one of those Calvin Klein ads, just wearing underwear. David Beckham's got nothing on you."

I look at him. He looks at me.

"Well, I wouldn't turn off the lights when I fucked you," he says, so imagine my surprise when he did.

So, I go to the doctor. Nothing serious: I found something weird on the sole of my foot, and I'm not sure if it's growing out or burrowing in. After the guy finishes with me, I go to the receptionist's desk to pay the bill, but she's chattering away on the phone. She puts her hand over the mouthpiece and whispers, "We'll send you a bill," and I say okay, sure.

A few days later I get a bill in the mail for $125, which is actually pretty cheap for a New York doc. I write him a check and mail it off. And a couple weeks later I get another bill, this one marked PAST DUE. Office visit, $125.

I call the receptionist. "I sent you a check a couple weeks ago," I say after fifteen minutes listening to the Boston Pops.

"Did you?" she asks, not even pretending to sound sincere. "Are you sure?"

I assure her that I always pay my bills, but her condescension doesn't fade. I tell her I'll write them another, and flush with victory she says, "Drop this one in the mailbox, okay?"

Fast forward to a couple weeks later. I open my bank statement, and there it is in black and white: two checks to the doctor, each $125, both cashed.

Yes, and I'm the flake.

I call the receptionist back and only listen to fuzzy classical for eight minutes. "You told me you didn't get my check, so I paid you again," I declare. "I want my $125 back."

"Absolutely no refunds or exchanges," she snaps.

"I'm not trying to swap my foot cream for Percocet," I say. "I paid you twice for one visit. You should refund the money from the second check."

"We absolutely, positively never refund money. We can, however, credit your account."

I reluctantly agreed -- it's not like I had a choice -- and now I've got a credit burning a hole in my pocket. It's like having a gift card, and I hate gift cards. I put them in my wallet and forget about them, and when I finally try to use them the monthly fees and surcharges have sucked them dry.

Whenever I get a gift card, then, I make a special trip to the store, and I use it. Right away, whether I need something or not. I decide to do this with the doctor credit, but I'm thinking I can give this thing a positive spin. One free doctor visit! One free illness, one free misadventure, like a Get Out of Jail Free! card. I can do something dangerous, something foolhardy, something I've always wanted to do but never had the nerve.

It's Fleet Week here in New York, with thousands of hunky sailors in town, so I'm thinking first I'll head to the docks and try to make a new friend. If I get through that unscathed, I'm having lunch at Serendipity 3.

Eija-Riitta Berliner-Mauer suffers from a condition called Objectum-Sexuality, which means she falls in love with stuff. Not the "I've got to have that!" kind of love, but the "Take me! TAKE ME NOW!" kind of love.

She saw the Berlin Wall on TV when she was a child and was instantly smitten, like when the rest of us saw Sean Connery in From Russia With Love. She pinned his photos to her bedroom wall and visited him every chance she got, and on her sixth visit they tied the knot before a handful of guests. They kissed, but just honeymooned locally. And that's when she took his name.

The relationship was a long and happy one, and Mrs. Berliner-Mauer was devoted to her spouse. "The Great Wall of China's attractive," she declared saucily, "but he's too thick - my husband is sexier."

Unfortunately, like all love stories, this one comes to an unhappy end. While the rest of mankind rejoiced as the Wall was almost entirely demolished in 1989, Mrs. Berliner-Mauer was horrified. She never really got over it, and eventually left the Wall for a garden fence.

I found this great website that does scientific age progressions. You upload a photo to the site, type in what age you want the person to be, and voila! Ten seconds later it shows you an altered photo of what the person will look like at that age. I've been playing around with it all morning, putting in hundreds of photos I've found on various celeb websites.

Here's an interesting one. Below left is David Cook, the American Idol winner, just a few days ago. And below right is what the computer thinks Mr. Cook would look like with the pallid complexion, the beady eyes, and the receding hairline of a man nearly twice his age.

Present Day	Computerized Progression to Age 50

For years religious idiots have been nagging Starbucks to change their logo. It was obscene, they said, picturing a happy, topless mermaid. So what if mermaids don't exist: boobies are dirty whether they're on a woman's chest or dangling from your car's rear view mirror. And what if our children see them? Perky breasts might corrupt them forever -- though they were nursing mere weeks ago -- and they're always buying $12 double-skim soya frappuccinos, you know.

Naturally, Starbucks ignored these people for the cranks they are. After the stock plummeted like 117% in the last two weeks, though, they started to think maybe these cranks might actually be hurting business. They caved in, and last week the new logo debuted on their coffee cups.

I don't know: I can't help but look at this new logo and think they've jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire.

GB5 at the Eagle, Part 2

Every Friday and Saturday night, New York City fills up with New Jersey residents. They stream across the border en masse, like illegal immigrants, clutching Nokia phones and bottles of imported beer instead of canteens full of water. The girls are all dressed like hookers, whether they're thin, fat, ugly or pretty, the only difference being the kind of money they'd command. The guys flash wads of cash and exude the confidence of experienced pimps.

Sure, the girls work at the Tanning Hut and the guys install air conditioners, but they know the act that nature demands if they ever want to get laid.

The Gay Blogging Star Trek Collector and I are in a taxi weaving in and out through the crowds. We make small talk, too preoccupied to bother with deep conversation but too polite to fondle each other while a middle-aged Turk watches from the front seat. After about ten minutes, the cab pulls in front of a pre-war apartment building in south Chelsea that takes up an entire city block. Richard pays off the driver, and two minutes later I'm standing in his apartment being herded toward a couch.

The apartment is a lot nicer than I expected. It's completely West Elm, all light fabrics and dark woods, with four or five large, minimalist pieces in each room and nothing to clutter it up. There are sheer curtains billowing in every window, and in the living room perfectly coordinated pillows with a vaguely Indian motif are positioned at the end of the long, gray couch.

Richard fetches me a beer, and before I have a chance to take a sip his tongue is wrestling with mine. I've barely decided if I want my eyes open or closed when his hands go wandering to my waistline. He unbuckles my pants, then yanks at them until he's exposed the part he wants. One last kiss and his face disappears for good.

That's annoying, I think, my eyes open wide. I mean, I work out. I've got perfectly attractive areas in between my face and my dick. It's insulting when guys have that kind of narrow focus. It's like inviting somebody over for dinner, and they wave away every dish before dessert. "I just really like dessert," they say, and maybe that's true, but it'll still make you question whether your eggplant parmesan is up to snuff.

As I watch him, I realize how much a blow job is like a car wash. Your vehicle disappears into a soggy tunnel, where it's rubbed and scrubbed and buffed by all sorts of hidden equipment. Richard goes over every curve, paying careful attention to the nooks and crannies. If this were a car wash, there'd be a Mexican guy waving a rag and tooting my horn right now.

"Jusht let me know if thish ish making you uncomfortable," he says, as though through a mouthful of Sugar Pops.

"No, it's great," I moan. "It's fantastic."

My libido sprints toward the finish line, so I desperately search for things to slow it down. I pull off his clothes, then mine. He veers right back to the same area, as if magnetized. "Tell me if you want me to shtop. I'll shtop."

"No, you're doing fine."

Rather than nod or smile -- movements possibly curtailed by the task at hand -- he stares up at me somberly, like the lawyer in that commercial looking for people with mesothelioma. "Sherioushly, thish ish pretty rude of me. You went to the bar to meet friendsh, and I shidetracked you. You didn't want a blowjob at all, and here I am forshing one on you. I wouldn't be shurprised if you shoved me away."

I get the picture. I grab his head and hold it still. "Okay, what's the problem? What are you trying to say?"

"Argue with me," he says. "Don't make it eashy. Pretend I'm taking advantage of you."

I sigh. I should have expected it: another sex specialist. Too many gay men are like sexual gourmets. As kids they're thrilled sick with a corn dog and fries, but ten years later they send back their entrée if the rhubarb foam is too flat.

"Okay," I concede. "Stop. Stop! Don't! You stop that right now."

"That'sh absholutely pitiful," he says.

"Well, I'm naked in your apartment, so it's kind of a stretch to act like I don't want it."

"See if this helpsh, then," he says. "I don't have a blog, and I don't collect Shtar Trek memorabilia."

I laugh. "That's the worst joke I've heard in years."

"I'm sherious," he says. "You shee any Shtar Trek crap around here? And I barely know what a blog ish."

All of a sudden the room freezes. Am I the stupidest guy in the world? I wonder. All the times I've felt idiotic over the previous few days come rushing back: getting a computer virus downloading that Cyndi Lauper cd from a website in Kazakhstan; ordering a vegetarian meal at a barbecue joint and discovering it's four kinds of beans. Once again I've been tricked into screwing by some horndog who knows I just fell off the carrot truck. "You son of a bitch," I say.

"Yeah," he says, slurping faster, "that'sh better."

"Goddammit," I snap. "This is over. Take my fucking dick out of your mouth."

"Oh, yeah, buddy. That'sh hot. That ish sho fuckin' hot."

"No, I'm serious. Fuck off! I'm not doing this any more. You fuckin' took advantage of me, you asshole. I wouldn't get a fuckin' blowjob from you if you were the last man on earth."

"Shit," he stammers as his movements turn jerky. "I'm gonna . . . I'm gonna . . . "

I glance down at him angrily and suddenly realize I haven't seen a hotter scene in years. The man is absolutely lost in bliss, his blue eyes rolling back into his head, his muscular shoulders flexing in orgasmic spasm, his strong, stubbled jaw glistening with the sheen of spit.

And then there's a large part of me looking happier than it's been in quite some time.

What can I say? If I could control myself, I wouldn't have eighteen pumpkin-pie scented Yankee Candles in my storage closet right now. We erupt more or less simultaneously, accompanied by my last protestations for him to cease once and for all. As my heartbeat returns to normal and my breath returns I find all my bad feelings have disappeared. I'm not mad. I don't feel guilty. I don't feel like I've been taken.

Actually, I feel pretty good.

He slides next to me on the couch and gives me a big, sloppy kiss, then grabs the remote and turns on the TV. We finish our beer as we watch the end of Saturday Night Live, and shortly after one I head home.

Two days later, I'm thinking about giving Richard a call. This time at least I'd know what I was getting into, and I'd prepare for the sex in advance. I grab a piece of paper and try to write up some notes. I figure the theme has to be "I Can't Believe I'm Letting You Suck Me Off Again!" but beyond that I'm coming up blank.

When you stop to think about it, capitalism really is an amazing thing. Corporations exist to provide a service while making a profit, of course, but it's often a tricky task to keep the balance right. Capitalism does that by encouraging competition.

When a corporation is profitable, competitors will spring up, and that competition naturally lowers prices. When one retailer sells a widget for a dollar, his neighbor will set the price at a few cents lower to bring the smart customer in.

In this way, the economist Adam Smith's "invisible hand" ensures that, without any government interference, the customer gets a great deal while the corporation's greed is kept in check.

Well, or the manufacturer tells the stores what to charge, and the stores all say, "Fuck the customers! Either they'll buy the thing or they won't."

BRUSSELS - Two Belgian beer fans have created a video game for urinals. The game allows players to slalom down ski slopes or blow up space aliens while relieving themselves, and is designed for two players to compete.

So I was standing at the urinal with my dick out, asking guys if they wanted to play a round. . . .

Amy Winehouse Teaches a Mouse to Talk

Some dude wrote a program that tells him when he needs a haircut using Google Calendar and Google Spreadsheets. Maybe I'm a geek, but I thought that was totally cool. Using him as inspiration, I hooked up my calendars at Restaurant.com, MyOpenBar.com and Crunch Gym with my Explorer IM account, so now an alert is sent to my BlackBerry every time I have to go to the bathroom. Is that great or what?

Oops. Back in ten.

The Hipster's Guide to Starting a Home-Based Business

I've lived in Williamsburg, New York for almost eight years. In that time it's transformed from a peaceful old Italian neighborhood to the hipster capital of the world. The smug, self-centered youngsters are still pouring in, hundreds by the day, but the area's saturation point has already been reached so the overflow wander aimlessly. Clusters of well-dressed Brown graduates pace back and forth on Bedford Avenue, flipping through the song libraries on their iPhones and desperately hoping to run into somebody who'll point them towards a career that won't require either talent or work.

Hey, I live to serve. Judging from the flea markets I've been to, here's what all the other unemployable English majors have been doing to start up home-based businesses.

1. Think of a colorful, memorable company name. What you want is a wacky, cutesy image that personalizes you: "Patches My Three-Legged Dog," "No Green Thumb," "I Farted in a Tent." Don't go for something like "Desperate Girl With No Known Skills." I mean, that could describe all of us.

2. Hire somebody to draw a logo. Yes, you could do it yourself, but if you had any talent you'd be working for somebody else, right?

3. Come up with a product line. This is easily done by going to any bookstore and searching through pictorial literature of the low-tech arts. (Your parents called them "craft books.")

If you're a girl, you can crochet mittens or hats. Bake cookies or muffins. Sew placemats or scarves. (Just make rectangles and let people do what they want with them. It encourages the user's connection with your art and besides, you're no fabric-usage Nazi.)

If you're a guy, make bowls by melting vinyl records. Fashion picture frames from "reclaimed" materials (i.e., anything in a dumpster that doesn't rot). Find images in magazines and decoupage them onto decorative plaques.

Sure, when your parents did that stuff it was hopelessly lame, but they didn't have a Betty Page tattoo or an ironic haircut, right?

If you have problems perfecting your product line, find a successful business and copy them. Stella McCartney t-shirts, Magnolia Bakery cupcakes, Hallmark cards. Think of it as an homage, but wear your running shoes in case the police show up.

4. Decide how much you deserve for your work. This is probably the hardest part. Investment bankers make at least a million a year, and what, are they better than you? NO! This is America! They're pencil-pushers, and you're a college graduate who's made a cupcake! Calculate backwards from the money you deserve, and don't even think twice about listing those squat, dry hockey pucks for $18 each. Remember, all your customers have rich parents too.

If some small-minded idiot complains about your prices, sarcastically say to them, "I should have known by looking at you that you were poor. If money is really so important to you, why don't you take one for free?" If they try, though, throw a Kombucha Rice Krispie Square at them.

5. Call your parents for start-up money. If they're less than enthusiastic, complain that they're sabotaging you. Tell them it's cheaper than paying for graduate school, plus there's real long-term potential in selling handmade, eighty-dollar potholders.

6. Don't take negativity from customers. Your pillow is less than square? The shoulder strap on your messenger bag is askew? Snatch your hand-crafted artwork out of their hand, and tell that small-minded jerk to go buy from somebody who knows how to operate a sewing machine.

For other cases, customize one of these retorts:

"I am not a robot! I work by instinct, and my creations cannot be constrained by your middle-class values!"

"Yes, it'd be nice if they soft or sweet or tasty, but they're fashioned from sustainable, free-trade bulgur wheat."

"They're a trifle pricey, but I value fair pay for labor over your petty individualistic greed."

Avoid stooping to their level with replies like "Hey, asshole, this shit is all recycled! What, do you fuckin' hate the earth?"

Now go forth and sell! Make millions and get famous! Because when it comes down to it, isn't that why your $93 "Fuck the Patriarchy!" tea towels exist?

They thought about lowering the price, but decided they couldn't settle for less than two million dollars in profit.

GB5 at the Eagle, Part 1

I get to the Eagle at 10:35 on Saturday night. I have a sweater tied around my neck -- an accessory pretty much required by the weather and an earlier, fashionable party -- and serious reservations. Sure, I want to meet other bloggers, since this is a pretty solitary task. I want to find out how other guys write, and find stuff to write about, and prop up their fading hope that at some point this massive waste of time will magically transform into something productive. But I hate gay bars more than Brazilian bikini waxes. They're meat markets, plain and simple, and being there is roughly equivalent to wrapping myself in plastic and lying down next to the chicken at Stop N' Shop.

One by one the shoppers wander by and check me out:

GUY #1: Oooh, I don't like that one. He looks a little tough.

GUY #2: And fatty, too, besides.

GUY #1: Should he be that color? Pick him up and give him a quick sniff.

I buy myself a beer and eye the crowd. Some faces look familiar. Maybe I recognize them from their blogs, but then again it's just about pitch black in here and middle-aged white guys all look alike in the dark. Suddenly it hits me that this is an impossible task. I can positively identify maybe three bloggers -- Joe.My.God, David, Steven -- and unless the rest are wearing name tags there's no way I'm going to find them.

I cover the first and second floors, then head up the stairs to the roof. Coming down is a handsome, butch number whose muscles stretch an extra-large t-shirt. Suddenly I remember why people go to bars. "You don't want to go up there," he says as we get close. "It's raining."

Tough. Butch. Scared of rain. Yeah, that makes sense. "That's okay," I reply. "I'm pretty much waterproof."

He laughs. "I guess you're safe then. But it scared everybody else off."

"Shit," I say. "This is so screwed. I'm looking for this convention of, like, gay bloggers, but I have no idea what they look like. Apparently I'm supposed to go up to every pale, pasty, flat-assed geek here and ask if he's a gay blogger, but in terms of sheer embarrassment that's like asking folks if they collect Star Trek memorabilia."

"I'm one of the gay bloggers," he says. "And I collect Star Trek memorabilia."

"Oh," I reply. "That's cool."

Somebody approaches us from the second floor. Rather than get separated, Star-Trek-Collecting Blogger moves to my side of the stairs. The newcomer walks between us, sees the rain coming down, then scurries back downstairs. STCB stays next to me.

He looks at the sweater tied around my neck. "You don't go to gay bars very often, do you?" he asks.

I shake my head. "I haven't been to one in five or six years."

"I thought so," he says. "You look really awkward and uncomfortable."

I really appreciate it when strangers criticize me. I mean, my parents can only do so much. "I hate bars. I hate socializing. I hate miserable techno music, and I hate wandering around cruising spots looking for people I wouldn't recognize until everybody thinks I'm absolutely desperate to find a man. So, believe it or not, I am awkward and uncomfortable."

"Oh. It's really, really hot."

Pause. "You should see me in bed," I say.

And ten minutes later, he did.

Cynthia: the End

With two minutes left in the scavenger hunt, I knocked on one last door, Cynthia gasping for breath behind me. Hell, I'd done a hell of a lot more for a lot less. At another party just days earlier I turned a Twister game into a wrestling match to win a bottle of Vitalis. The end justified the means, I thought: I mean, what does a girl need hair grease for?

The lights were on in the windows, so somebody had to be home. All we needed was a pound of pastrami, and with every single item on the list we'd be, at the very least, tied for the grand prize. I walloped the door this time, ignoring the black wreath that hung there. Footsteps slowly approached, and as my heartbeat thumped off the remaining seconds a figure in black appeared.

"Sorry to bother you," I said, barely pausing between words, "but we're on a scavenger hunt, and we just need one more thing to win."

The woman tried to smile but fell short. "I see," she said quietly, tightening her wrinkled fingers around a rosary. "Well, unfortunately, we just had a death in the family, so it's not exactly a good time."

Cynthia moved up beside me, her face awash in sympathy. "I'm so, sooo sorry," she said, "intruding on you at this difficult time. Our best wishes are with you, and our prayers go to your loved one. I sincerely apologize for interrupting you during such an unfortunate time."

"Yeah -- me too," I muttered, furtively glancing inside. On the left was a row of folding chairs, all occupied by mourners staring at us. In the center were satin-swagged French doors leading to a patio and pool. On the right was a Louis XIV dining table draped with a lace cloth and overloaded with food. Chafing dishes, casseroles, cakes and cookies. A platter of deli meat.

The woman said that our sentiments were much appreciated as I cocked my head toward the buffet. "Do you mind if I make myself a snack?" I asked.

She nodded sadly, with what was pretty much the opposite of "Hey, help yourself!" I power-walked past the mourners, grabbed a couple slices of bread just for appearance's sake, and piled the pastrami high. I didn't have a clue how much meat made a pound, but I wasn't going to take any chances. I stacked the ruddy slices until they couldn't fit into anybody's mouth and threw another slice of bread on top. Clutching the thing with both hands I sprinted back to the front door.

The woman slid her sad gaze between my face and my sandwich as the second-hand on my watch ticked past the thirty-second mark. "As my girlfriend said," I told her, "we're so sorry to interrupt in your time of need we wish your loved ones all the best both here or heaven or hell or wherever you think they'll end up."

We sprinted back to Barbara's house and got inside just as the gong sounded. I don't know what the other teams had been doing, but it wasn't going door to door. Most only had two or three items, and nobody else had been to the funeral house. After expressing astonishment at our feat Barbara announced that Cynthia and I had won.

I screamed. Loud. Four maids poked their curious, paper-hatted faces through doorways. Dogs in eight neighboring houses yapped out the first eighth of a bark, the rest squelched by zaps from their electronic collars.

Barbara hugged Cynthia and me, and held the booty out. Cynthia shyly reached for the tennis bracelet as I felt an "I don't think so!" bubble up in my chest.

"Take good care of that watch, boy," Barbara's dad said. "That's three thousand dollars worth of Swiss craftsmanship."

"Sure," I laughed. As the proud owner of a Casio equipped with Space Invaders, I'd assumed Timex was top of the line. Barbara's dad nodded, and suddenly I realized he was serious. I tried to picture all those zeros and the room swam around me. I took the watch from Barbara and grasped it delicately, the way my parents always told me to hold my baby sister.

Cynthia took the bracelet -- basically a long line of diamonds held together by gold -- and draped it around her wrist. I couldn't help but feel a twang of jealousy, but my platinum prize was reassuring. We drank punch and gushed about our luck until her dad appeared, then piled into the back of his car. She slid in close in the darkness and maneuvered her lips in front of mine. Why did it have to be like this? I wondered as she pressed our faces together. Why did she always have to spoil things?

She tongue-kissed me while her father eyed us proudly in the rear view mirror. I pretended I was kissing him, feeling his neat little moustache tickle my lip, massaging the muscles in his broad shoulders. "I had so much fun," Cynthia murmured.

"I did too," I said.

"You know, Barbara really likes you. She told me if you ever get tired of dating me, she'd go out with you."

Was it possible? I thought. Could I really end up with a beach in the family?

"Not a chance," I reassured Cynthia, watching the light glint off my Rolex's face. "I don't think I could date another girl after going out with you."

In the May 19 issue of TV Guide there's a review of HBO's Recount, a controversial re-creation of the Florida 2000 election debacle with hanging chads and Katherine Harris. Here's the last paragraph:

A few weeks ago, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said "Get over it" when asked by 60 Minutes about the court's decision [to certify Florida's votes for Bush rather than Gore]. Recount is a potent reminder of why a nation devoted to democracy can't afford to forget.

Yet another milestone in the Bush presidency:

May 19, 2008: A magazine whose crossword puzzle has the clue "Murder ____ Wrote" makes the U. S. Supreme Court look dumb.

Swish

Most people have two types of goals, or tasks they want to achieve. There are your primary goals, like "I want to find a boyfriend" or "I want a job where I'm not forced to wear a paper hat." And there are your secondary, transient goals, like "I want to finish this soup without staining my shirt" or "I want to get all the way through this doctor's exam without getting a hard-on."

I've had all four of those goals recently, but my main one has been to answer this question: Why am I the only guy in the universe who doesn't have a book deal?

In actively trying to answer this question, I go to as many book readings as I can. I stare at the authors as though through a microscope, noting and dissecting every iota of information that I can glean, trying to come up with the reason why they're published and I'm not.

Sometimes the answer is obvious. He's a better writer than I am; he's gorgeous; he's charismatic. And sometimes I just put it down to nepotism, like that "self-made" dude whose dad writes Op Ed for the New York Times.

Everyone's buzzing about Swish, the latest book by Joel Derfner, so when I read on Joe.My.God that Joel is giving a reading I can't pass it up. I call Raoul and ask if he wants to meet me there, maybe have coffee afterwards, and he says sure. At seven o'clock -- half an hour before the reading starts -- I find a couple seats in the audience at Barnes and Noble and I put my sweater on one for Raoul.

I skim Swish as empty seats slowly become scarce. "Is this seat taken?" a newcomer asks, pointing at the one under my sweater, and absent-mindedly I say yes. I glance up from the book as he retreats and I think, hmm -- he looks familiar. And then it hits me:

It's David from Someone In A Tree.

David and his hunky friend eventually scrounge up seats in the front row, while I realize I've done a very stupid thing. I could have had two hot, smart guys next to me. I could have been networking! Instead I'm waiting for a guy who probably won't turn up because he spotted something sparkly in a store window.

One by one the last remaining chairs fill up, and then the aisles start to jam. The newcomers are alternating between looking at my sweater and shooting angry glares at me. I've got to do something: if David turns around, he'll see me with the empty chair and think either (1) I'm some pitiful dude who's been stood up by his date, or (2) I'm an asshole with an imaginary friend. Worse, I'm going to meet him this weekend at the Gay Blog Convention, and just judging from the look of the guy I'm guessing he has a functional short-term memory.

I pull my sweater off the chair and four standees dive for it. The winner, unfortunately, is a man who smells like he hasn't heard about the invention of soap. He's wearing a suit jacket that has more holes than a Monk episode, and through some of those holes I see (1) he's not wearing a shirt underneath, and (2) his skin is caked with road-dirt.

The man isn't here to see Joel, in short. He just got tired of sleeping under a bridge and decided to find a seat indoors.

I start to consider the logistics of the situation when David's head turns. It's like he can hear my brain crackling, or sense my desperation. He realizes there's a scene unfolding behind him that he really shouldn't miss. If his head turns just two more degrees, in fact, he'll see my homeless neighbor take a swig from a bottle inside a brown paper bag, and then offer it to me.

Which is why, at 7:31, I'm sitting on a bench in a park by the Hudson River. No Joel. No David. No Raoul. Sure, maybe I'm looking at New Jersey instead of listening to the thoughts of a talented writer, but there's no reason I can't still ponder my goal.

I take a swig from Walter's bottle before passing it back. "It sounds like you're lousy at networking," he says, and I think, you know, you're probably right.

Cynthia, Part Two

After the prom, Cynthia phoned me every ten minutes, day and night. Yes, it got a little annoying, but on the plus side at least she didn't ask for her money back. She wanted to see me again, and when flattery didn't work she turned to bribery. "We'll have lots of fun," she said, "and I'll pay for everything."

I knew I was gay, but I agreed anyway. When you're living at home, with no car and no money, it's not like your Friday nights are booked. I went out with Cynthia just three or four times, yet somehow our names got linked like macaroni and cheese. The more I conceded, the more she wanted, until she started "accidentally" turning up every time I walked out my front door. I'd express annoyance and declare that I needed my freedom, but I shut up when food or jewelry appeared.

We saw Cynthia's friend Barbara again maybe a month into our couplehood, when she had a party at the family's Hancock Park estate. Her haughty folks acted like I should have been thrilled to be there, but frankly I wasn't impressed. In Europe, rich people use cash to show off their refined taste. They buy Rembrandts, drink hundred-year-old Cognacs, commission Frank Gehry to design their country homes. Judging from the party, American money went toward Devo CDs, frozen eggrolls and eight hundred feet of orange crepe paper. Sure, the family had a library named after them. What good was that? Give me a call when somebody springs for a Porsche.

To entertain a room full of her high-school friends, Barbara had arranged a scavenger hunt. Each couple was given a list of odd items to scrounge up in the neighborhood, with exactly one hour to get them. Cynthia grabbed my bicep and squealed her excitement. I rolled my eyes and groaned. The only thing I'd be looking for was alcohol.

"And the winning team," Barbara announced, "get these." She held up her hands: in one was a Cartier tennis bracelet, in the other a Rolex watch.

I sprinted past the other guests and out the front door. "You get the first five items," I yelled to Cynthia, quickly disappearing in my dust, "and I'll get all the rest."

I'd found three things before Cynthia caught up: empty-handed, angered by my desertion, and crippled by her high heels. She toddled irritably behind me as I pounded on every door and quizzed everybody who answered. Do you have a plastic spork? A flea collar? A picture of Millard Fillmore?

To my surprise, the neighbors turned over everything I asked for. I made a mental note to come back alone and ask for Armani suits and Kenneth Cole shoes. One by one we checked off everything on the list until all that was left was a pound of pastrami. We had exactly five minutes left.

"That's probably good enough," Cynthia said, massaging a blistered foot. "Nobody else could have come close." I felt an odd twinge of pity for her. She'd have been happy strolling down the street holding hands. She didn't want a tennis bracelet: she wanted a boyfriend.

Too bad for her, I thought as I pounded on one last door, that boyfriend wanted a tennis bracelet.

A Belated Tribute to Mom

Every year around this time websites in need of publicity like to reassure mothers that they're productive members of society. Now, that's sure nice, but it sets a dangerous precedent: I mean, if they're going to start lying, where exactly will they stop?

The articles break down a mother's daily chores and calculate what professionals would charge to do the work. MomConnection and the New York Daily News figured mothers are worth nearly $70,000 a year, with a 47.5 hour work week. Some of their figures are a little spotty, though. Mom spends 3 1/2 hours running errands, which they claim is like a "paid shopper" who earns $21 an hour. She cooks for 1 1/2 hours a day so they make her a "head chef" deserving $42.52 an hour.

Oh, puh-leeze. Mom is a "head chef"? News flash: Head chefs don't call local restaurants for take out. Head chefs don't make macaroni and cheese from a box. Everyone at the table can order a different meal from a head chef and they won't yell "You'll eat it and you'll like it!" at you.

Salary.com is even more questionable, saying Mom would earn $117,000 a year. Over half of their claimed 94.4 hour work week gets overtime pay, which makes sense: I mean, if you're going to make up a paycheck, you might as well make it a union job.

They've got Mom functioning as everything from a computer operator to a CEO to an RN. Uh, no offense guys, but real nurses don't heal wounds by wiping kleenexes full of spit across them. And by the way -- mom plays the radio in the SUV. Why not make her a DJ too?

Oddly, amidst all these accounts, nobody's done the calculations for all the part-time jobs Dad does. Something tells me that, as usual, the man's gonna make a little more.

Job Title	Yearly Salary
Garbage collector	$3,280
Plumber	$7,320
Mechanic	$11,900
Sperm donor	$17,460
Comedian	$25,810
Bartender	$36,190
Grillmaster	$52,600
Intrauterine Fertilization Specialist	$63,400
Sports Commentator	$84,000
Sex Slave to a Woman with Saggy Boobs and Stretch Marks	Priceless

I've been saying for absolute eons that we don't need GLAAD, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. (Could there be a more ridiculous name for such an angry group?) They're such bitter old queens. What's the problem? I've never had any problems with homophobia here in my Miami Beach florist shop, and I suspect a lot of those scary stories have sprung from the overactive imaginations of lonely fairies who have seen too many Bette Davis movies.

I mean, look at Jim Carrey in "I Love You Phillip Morris" and Adam Sandler in "You Don't Mess with the Zohan." They're both playing homosexuals, and if these characters don't look exactly like us I'll eat my tangerine beret.

Jim is faultlessly dressed for a Labor Day tea dance, with the deep V-neck accenting those carved pecs. I've searched for decades for a gold lion's head belt buckle, and I'd blow Mel Gibson to get a pair of sunglasses that chic.

Adam, on the other hand, perfectly reflects the fairies' playful side with a Care Bears t-shirt and Daisy Dukes cut to the wazoo. I wish I knew his hairstyling secrets: it takes me four hours and half a can of Aquanet to get my (eek! thinning!) locks half that high! He's outdoors on some adventure but he's still got his hairdryer and pinking shears. It's only funny because it's true!

I know you're all sitting there with your mouths open, because it's like looking in a mirror. Somehow they've stumbled upon the very definition of gayness, circa 2008, and I give them two snaps up for that. Though if either has twin Pekineses named Rock and Cary I'm calling my lawyer, I really am.

So, somebody tell GLAAD to dry up and fly away, because real gay people have finally made their way onscreen. It's time to put down those angry banners and stop chanting, and have a celebration for once. Girlfriend, pass the lube and the poppers. But watch out for the caftan -- it's silk.

Classic or Crap?

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter has an interesting interview with Mike Darnell, Fox TV's "president of alternative entertainment" (i.e., reality shows). Mr. Darnell is responsible for one or two okay TV programs ("Don't Forget the Lyrics"), quite a few lowest-common-denominator programs ("The Moment of Truth," "The Swan"), and a couple programs that singlehandedly prove heterosexuals take marriage about as seriously as a fungal infection ("Married By America," "Who Wants to Marry a Multimillionaire?").

At the end of the interview, Mr. Darnell is asked to name his worst ideas and also his favorite ideas that never got to air. I've edited his answers slightly to remove any clues; see if you can tell the classic from the crap.

1.

I was pitched "'Big Brother' with puppets" -- so that half the "Big Brother" people are human and they're competing against puppets. Week after week, the audience either votes a human out or a puppet.

2.

There was the "Left-Handed Awards." The producers were excited about it -- "It's about left-handed people, and Jerry Seinfeld is left-handed, and he'll come on."

3.

A female prison beauty pageant. The whole idea of going from prisoner to hot babe is interesting. They would have filmed it in Croatia and called it "Female Prisoner Beauty Pageant."

ANSWERS:

#1 and #2 are crap, #3 is classic ("It's empowering to women, it's empowering to prisoners").