Dear Will, Grace, Jack & Karen,

Or should I say Eric, Debra, Sean and Megan? But maybe we aren't so close that I can use your Christian names yet, no? Besides, you're all so pigeonholed by your characters now that no one will ever refer to you by your real names. So, I hear tell that your show is approaching it's series finale. I must admit that I'm sort of surprised. Not that it's going to end, just that it's still on. Now look, you can get all mad at me for saying that but you kind of know it's true, don't you? I'll admit, I have not been keeping up in any continuous way for the last 4 or 5 seasons. I will admit I did try to watch you guys pretty regularly when you first got going. As cynical as I am about how queers are represented in the mainstream media, especially television, I was curious to see how it all panned out. And despite that aforementioned cynicism, I did have high hopes. Well, maybe not high hopes. More like cruising altitude hopes. But still, I had hopes nonetheless. I still remember watching the coming out episode of Ellen and being moved despite my wariness of this all happening on the idiot box. I know some folks have the whole "visibility of any kind is a good thing" mentality, but I have never subscribed wholeheartedly to that notion although I have read a few of the back issues.

But yeah, that episode of Ellen was pretty groundbreaking and I liked how it balanced humor and seriousness and how there was even a little bit of heartbreak for her over the Laura Dern character rejecting her - that felt really real. And who didn't laugh when she said "I'm gay" into the microphone so the whole airport heard her? But very soon after that it all became an endless string of A Very Special Gay Episode of Ellen and it really lost the plot. I kind of admired her for trying to have these serious issues in her show, but it got so hamfisted and awkward. But I digress.

So along came you four and your Brand New Gay Sitcom. Like I said, I was going to give it a spin. Now I don't think I started watching it right from the get go in Season 1. If I did, I know Will's mullet in the pilot episode would've been enough to send me screaming from the TV set for many years. I know plenty of gay men who make baaaad hair and fashion choices, but your hair in that episode just screamed out "I'm a straight actor playing gay for this pilot episode which may or may not get picked up, so I am not cutting this puppy until it does! I know I came in after Karen's voice reached it's awesome, helium-induced, nasally-ness but before Grace's hair went from those horrible tight curls to the slightly less horrible and less tight curls in what, Season 2? At any rate, I watched. And I laughed. And I generally enjoyed. I say "generally" because as far as a mainstream sitcom goes with a premiere episode that rips off a huge plot point from the first episode of another mainstream sitcom on the same network *cough*Friends*cough*, it wasn't half bad. I liked hearing jokes that maybe I got more cuz I'm a fag and all and there were definitely some entertaining moments. The other reason I say "generally" is because when it comes to being a show that represents An Important Step For Gay People I am not so pleased with it. At this point, I think I'd like to address you all separately, because it's the easiest way to express this.

Will. First off, I am not going to congratulate you for being a straight actor who played gay. As an actor, that's part of your job. I'm not saying you're asking for that, but I just wanted to get that out of the way first in case you were expecting praise. But as a straight actor who I know received tons of letters from gay people who were all "Oh, this show saved my life" or "Watching this show with my parents made it so I felt okay coming out to them" and so forth, did you ever think to try and push to have Will not be such a neurotic, sexless, loveless shell of a human being whose sole purpose in life was more than helping his hetero girlfriend get laid at any cost, including the aforementioned lovelessness and sexlessness of his own life? Did you? I know they used the whole "he's getting over his painful breakup with his long term boyfriend" to put off you being actively gay (unless you count talking about clothes, moisturizer and Broadway musicals), but come the fuck on. Who did you think you were helping? Who did you think you were making it better for? All of us who want to be doomed to a life devoid of pleasure and mired in such self-hate that we let our insane fag hag friends destroy any chances we ever have of getting laid or loved? I know you recently sucked face with Taye Diggs because I surfed past the episode and stopped to watch it like the trainwreck it was. I did admire it a bit and but it just reeked of too little, too late. Buffy The Vampire Slayer (R.I.P. best TV show ever) may have struggled with their original network to show love more vividly between Tara and Willow, but at least it was clear they had love and those spells-as-sex substitutes were pretty damn hot. You were just a huge let down my friend and I really hope I never have to see you play one of us again.

Which brings me to you, Grace. Yes, you. I'm sure you're used to all sorts of queens coming up to you being like "Girl, I have a friend just like you Miss Thang!" But believe you me this: all of them secretly hate her. And this is coming from someone who has more female friends than male and cherishes those relationships. But I cherish them because they are with women who are fully realized, fully functioning beings who are smart, talented, creative and inspiring. Not because they're freakishly co-dependent and attention whorish to a clinically unhealthy degree. Did you ever for once think that maybe, just maybe, this Groundbreaking Gay Sitcom focused just a weensy bit too much on you and your straight girl life? Or were you just so bitter after the horrendous failure that was Ned & Stacey that you figured it should be all about you now since you suffered the indignity of having to share so much screen time with Thomas Haden Church and his giant head? Well, you were wrong. I kept waiting for the episode where Will flipped out on you and sent you packing and it stuck. Or I kept waiting for the episode where you didn't ruin yet another potential date for him and actually allowed the man to relieve what must've been the biggest case of blue balls in the history of the world. Instead, we just had to watch you be 800 kinds of neurotic and hump every straight man that crossed your threshold while poor Will couldn't get so much as a taste of cock. I see a lifetime of Lifetime Television for Women in your future. Which would be a fitting fate for someone whose character was such an insult to intellgitent, heterosexual women, especially any with gay friends. Enjoy! Oh, and one last bit of faggy advice: redheads shouldn't wear that much gold. Ever.

So, Jack, you're next. You're a tough one. Part of me loves you because you're femmey when my gay brethren are so obsessed with (Fake) Butch Realness and because it was at least implied that you got laid. But then another part of me doesn't love you all that much because of the endless string of stereotypes that you were able to contain in your tiny, tiny frame. Cher lover? Check. Frustrated actor/dancer/singer? Check. Endless string of one night stands but never able to actually have a relationship? Chiggidy check! And then there's the whole part about how you "refuse to disclose your sexuality" in interviews which we all know is secret code for FAG. I mean, do you think we didn't know? Do you think we weren't tipped off when you showed up at the Oscars with Tom Cruise that one time? I will give that you're pretty damn funny but I don't know...I was just really disappointed in you. It's always hard when one of your own lets you down. And don't say "What do you mean, 'one of your own'" because you know full and well that you're a giant 'mo. I did like you in Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss though. You reminded me of a good friend of mine in that role. P.S. That friend is gay too.

And lastly, we came to you Karen. There are moments in my life where I feel so cliche in my gayness, like when I use the word "flourish" or when I wish I could sometimes shape change into a girl and wear cute skirts. Another of those times is when I love the fuck out of you. I know, I know, it's like Edina Monsoon once said "How typical, a bitch with a drug habit and your anybodies". But that is the thing: you remind me of her. And Patsy. You're the closest thing we ever got to an American version of Absolutely Fabulous and you were the queerest person on all of Will & Grace. And you know it too. We all know you publicly identified as bisexual and you're so pansexual on that show it's amazing. Karen made more queer references and smarter ones - hello, you made a Sarah Lawrence lesbian joke for fuck's sake! - than anyone on the show. You also never ceased to show your disdain for Will and Grace's messed up relationship and it's sexless marriage qualities. Sure, you're a bit guilty for participating in this sham of an Important Gay Television Show, but I pretty much forgive you for your sins because you're so subversive in your lust for women, fags and big guys. I can only hope the season finale ends with you drenched in the blood of your co-stars as you maniacally declare "IT'S THE KAREN SHOW NOW!" then run off to boff that butch UPS dyke from a few seasons back.

Whew, this was one hell of a long letter. I guess I should wrap it up. I will say congratulations to some degree for bringing homo stuff to the small screen and quite possibly changing some closed minds. I will also say that I hope you learned something and that sometimes representation isn't simply enough. It needs to be good representation. Also, there should be sex. For the homos. And Karen.

Love,
Chriso

Late Night Brush with Fame

When I lived in New York City I was a celebrity magnet - just ask my friend Tronny. I couldn't walk down the street without seeing Paul Rudd, Henry Winkler, Linda Evangelista, etc. Now that I have been living in San Francisco my "celebrity" sitings are now confined to seeing guys from porn movies I have watched. This may sound hot but trust me, most of them do not look that good in person (way NSFW links ahead!). I have seen all of 4 that don't look majorly torn up in real life. Tragic.

Anyways, last night Red and I were enjoying a late-ish post-band practice, post-humping meal at Sparky's and I saw this male-n-female couple come in and sit two booths behind us. The guy looked annoyingly familiar and I was positive I had seen him on TV or in a movie before. My brain went through it's mental rolodex of useless movie and TV trivia. I have a ton of it stored in my mind and I am convinced it takes up all the space that would normally allow me to remember people's birthdays, which I suck at. I am like Kelly Bundy in that one episode of Married With Children where she learns all that new information to go on a TV game show but they show how it is actually pushing old information out of her brain and she ends up forgetting what her Dad does for a living, which is the final question and thus she loses the game. See what I mean?

After staring at Mr. Potentially Celeb it finally hit me and I whisper to Red "I think he was that dude in Showgirls who picks her up hitchhiking at the beginning and end of the movie!" He wasn't 100% sure but I was set to IMDB him when I got home and find out for sure. And I was right! I had seen the one, the only, Dewey Weber who played "Jeff", the guy who picks Nomi Malone up hitchhiking at the beginning and end of Showgirls, one of the best worst movies ever made. This is him and it's pretty much what he looks like now:



He is actually pretty handsome in person. As you can see from his IMDB resume he is no mega-star. But that is why I wish all the more that I had gone up and asked him if he was indeed that guy from Showgirls. Maybe it would've made his night to be recognized. Or, more likely, he would stare at me with pain and exasperation that I had remembered his role in such a tragically embarassing film.

The Longer I Live In San Francisco...

...the more I know I am highly likely to be killed by a car.

Yesterday was a sunny, clear, fairly warm day so I decided to go for a walk. I have developed this bad habit of aquiring new music and then barely listening to it before it gets lost in the shuffle with all of my old stuff. So I decided to strap on ye olde iPod and go walk around and listen to some new things that I had bought and/or been given lately. I will digress for a moment and say that my new favorite band is Love Is All from Sweden. They remind me of equal parts Huggy Bear and X-Ray Spex with dashes of Dolly Mixture as well as their own unique, wonderfully awesome loudness thrown in the mix. I highly reccomend their album 9 Times That Same Song.

So, as I was walking along 19th street towards Noe enjoying this band for the first of many times, the sun shining, birds chirping, gays doing lawn work, etc. I decided I'd cross the street to walk down Noe to 18th. I got to the crosswalk and saw a car approaching in the distance. It wasn't moving very fast so I started to step into the crosswalk figuring I'd make it, especially since there was a STOP sign at the crosswalk and the driver would see it and, y'know, stop. Oh, how naive I can still be at this advanced age of mine. I looked at the car again to see that the driver was driving with one hand on the wheel while she bent over to the right looking for something she dropped or had put on the floor. Perhaps it was a CD or some Chinese take out or maybe even the Cracker Jack Box which had her new license in it. I will never know. So I quickly stepped back onto the sidewalk because I had a feeling her dumb ass couldn't see me.

As she pulled up and through the crosswalk, finally stopping with her back wheels barely on the other side of it, she looked up and became aware of me standing on the sidewalk with my arms up in a shrug but with far more disbelief on my face. She saw me and started making the I'm A Bad Driver Apology Face. At least she didn't have the I'm A Bad Driver Yet Shockingly Indignant and Angry With You Even Though This Is All My Fault Face. As I walked behind her car to begin crossing the street I saw her lowering her window to talk to me. Without even waiting to hear from her I took off my headphones and said "You're going to run someone over" and continued walking. I heard her, in an uber-whiny voice, start to make some sort of excuse or explain what she had been doing. I simply said "NO", put my headphones back on and kept walking. I think she was actually going to try and justify what she had been doing as totally okay as opposed to totally wrong and dangerously irresponsible. I heard her saying "Oh, I just had to find..." or something of that nature.

And this sort of thing happens so much here. I can't count how many times I have lept back to the curb as some jackass on his/her phone comes barelling around the corner without so much as a casual glance to check for pedestrians. There have been several hit and run cases involving cyclists lately in this city. I personally can't even imagine riding a bike around here the way people drive like such utter and total idiots. I can only take a small amount of comfort in reading stories like this to see that sometimes really stupid drivers are the ones who pay, not all us innocent, scared, quick-reflexed pedestrians.

I feel bad for actors.

When I was a wee lad of about 6 or 7 years old, I was enrolled in some acting workshops run by a local children's theater group. Although people who know my babbling loud ass now would be shocked to read this, I was a painfully shy child. I used to hide behind my mother's legs when we ran into someone we knew in the grocery store and I rarely talked to any adults other than my parents. My Mom thought the workshop would be a good way to boost my confidence and make me a little more outgoing. She also clearly sensed, on some level, The Uncontrollable Gayness Within Me and knew that this experience would help me tap into my latent fagosity.

I took to acting like Whitney Houston to illegal drugs - I was hooked. Not only did I learn to come out of my shell but I fucking loved performing. I may have been an asthmatic, depressed, be-spectacled kid with braces but onstage I shook all of that off and became my character. Before the curtain would rise I'd be backstage wheezing myself silly and trying to remember the prayers we learned in Christian Science Sunday School so I could heal myself and all of that bullshit. P.S. they never worked. But once I got onstage the combination of adrenaline and my own personal dedication pushed all illness aside and I'd often walk off stage with my lungs in perfect working order. I continued to perform in plays all through high school and I had tons of different roles from the father in The Sound of Music in 8th grade to the Catepillar in a production of Alice In Wonderland. When it came time to look at colleges I wanted two things in a school: queers and a theater program (as if the two aren't going to naturally co-exist). I got accepted at Sarah Lawrence College and was on my way to fulfilling my dreams to become an actor.

But something happened in college that stopped me from wanting to act anymore. It seemed like all the people in the theater department were totally horrible except for maybe myself and 10 others. Everyone acted as if there was a spotlight trained on their every move and they were so loud, competitive and annoying I found myself hating them all. The only people who got cast in faculty directed shows were these talentless, brown nosing assholes who I wanted nothing to do with. After being in a couple of plays my freshmen and sophomore year, I quit doing theater altogether. But my desire to perform found another home as I taught myself to play drums and began to realize I loved playing music about 1000x more than I did acting.

And I thank fucking Lynda Carter or whoever too, because I really can't imagine a more depressing profession. Very few people from my theatrical past have ever made it anywhere or are even remotely successful at their chosen career (and a teenage crush-sized sigh for that last one). I have seen a few people I knew in some really bad commercials and I feel so lucky that I fell in love with punk rock and indie music, where it is/was okay to not try and be massively successful. I can't imagine how bummed out I'd be right now if I was still a struggling actor and all I could show for it was a non-speaking extra role on some CBS sitcom or a commercial about Axe Body Spray (no I am not linking to that shit). But these are the actors who make me truly grateful I gave it up:

-Actors who do STD commercials. Shit, I sure hope it pays well because you are so not getting laid for a really long time once those air. No matter how positive you feel about this new way of controlling your genital herpes.

-Those struggling actor/comedians who get stuck doing shit on VH-1 or E! TV where all they do is comment on stupid celebs like Paris Hilton or the Olsen Twins and their biggest celebrity oops or something. Like you're gonna be cast in anything other than a revival of the Policy Academy series. Shown only on TBS.

-Actors who never get to do anything besides utter crap. I mean, maybe I am being unfair. Maybe Ryan Reynolds is super happy to be in movies like Van Wilder or Just Friends. I hope so, because it would be so depressing to find out he dreams of doing Shakespearean theater or wishes he had the current career path of like, Joseph Gordon-Levitt or something. That would bum me out beyond belief.

See, I get to have my pleasant memories of my theater fag past and retain the dignity of knowing I was never rejected for a guest spot on Reba. That and the memory that I got to see Andy Comeau's butt multiple times during the summer of 1990 when we shared a dressing room as extras in the American Stage Festival's production of Frankenstein. Because really, it was always about the potential to see naked men for me.

Little Babies

This past weekend my boyfriend and I (who shall be henceforth referred to in this here blog as "Red" due to his redheadedness) went away for a little relaxation near nature and stayed in a cabin in Guerneville, CA. We didn't have a TV set to wacth, we didn't bring our laptops and our cell phones were off the whole weekend. It was a goal to get away from the media overload that is living in any kind of city and to also just get ourselves away from sitting in front of screens and being bombarded with useless information. We also agreed to have it be a weekend of just doing whatever the hell we wanted, no schedules or rules and this included eating a ton of crappy junk food and not giving a flying fuck. We stopped at a grocery store near the resort/cabin area to buy many health-free items and I spontaneously grabbed a copy of "People" magazine because it seemed like the perfect companion to our mac-n-cheese and hot wings dinner that awaited. I rather wish I hadn't.

I am not going to get on any kind of soapbox about how watching TV is evil and being interested in celebrities, even if it's in a generally cynically, largely waiting-for-the-next-schadenfreude-moment kind of way. I mean hi, I wrote an entry about loving So Notorious. But one thing I have long been thinking about is how it seems like our culture is on celebrity overload these days. It's not like we haven't been all about the celebs in the past but it seems like it's reaching a boiling point. I seem to remember a day when sitting in the doctor/dentist/therapist waiting room and flipping through "People" or "Us" wasn't equivalent to reading "The Enquirer". Is it me? Am I imagining it? Were they once publications that did something other than speculate about celebrity lives or show us what Julia Roberts looks like sneezing as she drinks a decaf, no-foam, soy chai latte? I am not saying they were earth-shatteringly important literary journals, but there is a distinct thematic shift. As I flipped through page after page of utter fluff, I wondered if there were any celebrities left in Hollywood who didn't make me cringe. Even people like Gwnyeth Paltrow who are portrayed as "down-to-earth" or "well-adjusted" make me want to gag with their utter whitebread slef-righteousness and horrible baby names. And that was the other thing I kept thinking: "Why the fuck is everyone in Hollywood having a fucking baby?" Yes, I swear a lot in both word and thought.

But I am serious, why the hell is every other woman in Hollywood pregnant? I don't know why, but it chills me in this certain way. A few years ago I commented to a friend of mine that it seemed like there was no more androgyny left in Hollywood. There was no one left who was left-of-center or weird. And I don't mean weird in a "what the hell is Britney thinking wearing Uggs with an empire waisted tee and a denim thong" kind of way. I mean weird in a "Hi, my name's Angelina Jolie and this is the blood-spattered shirt of my husband to be, you got a problem with that?" Every female star I see short of Tilda Swinton (who so doesn't count in my mind and was totaly ladied up in The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe) is uber-femme to the highest degree. It's all long flowing tresses, soft pink makeup and flowy gauzy outifts from here to the moon. And they're all fucking pregnant!

Now I'm not saying women can't be pregnant or have long hair or dress girly and still be subversive in some way. But it all feels so calculated it definitely causes me to question how much of it is personal choice. And it's not just Katie Holmes and her fauxlationship with Tom Cruise and the spawning of his "daughter" (and that is not a comment on the gender of the child, just the veracity of his paternity) that makes me feel this way. It's something about what feels like the mass heterosexualization of Hollywood to a degree that I feel like I haven't witnessed before. Maybe it was all getting too relaxed and a little edgy there. Maybe Angelina mentioned her array of multi-gendered lovers too many times or George Clooney was just too single for too long and then he made that wacky comment about playing Batman as gay. Maybe Hillary Swank was too convincing as a transgendered man and Charlize Theron made us care too much about a lesbian prostitute/killer. Maybe it was time for Angelina to stop being so Other and stop dyeing her hair black and showing her tattoos so much. Maybe it was time for her to start hitting the red carpet in some Classically Hollywood Beautiful Gowns and start popping out the puppies, not just adopting them (which I do see as a bit of a subversive act, still). It was certainly important that every single article or press snippet about Brokeback Mountain made it blaringly loud and clear that not only were it's leading men utterly heterosexual but that Heath Ledger was so incredibly straight that he totally blasted Michelle Williams full of baby juice during the filming of the movie! Thank God a woman became pregnant in the process of making that movie or it's secret hypnotic powers would turn all men into a bunch of butt-ramming, cock slupring homos! And what freaks me out is that so many people are probably believing it all 100%, no questions asked. Do people really think an industry centered around entertainment, performance and image is populated almopst exclusively by heterosexual people except for Elton John, Sir Ian McKellen and Lily Tomlin? Give me a fucking break.

I am sure tons of people, with children and without, could read this all and be horrified. How could I even imply that in this day and age people are having children for any other reason than because they wanted one?! It's not as if hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of children have been born for any number of wrong reasons in this country before. It's not as if people have babies to fill a void in their lives or because they want one person in their life to love them back or need them back or even because babies are just the next step in a life that we're all taught to want and strive for. Britney Spears should totally have a kid, she's totally ready and didn't grow up and sexualize too quickly and is completely prime parent material! You should totally have a baby too, 16 year old girl who worships everything your favorite celeb ladies do. And Hollywood would certainly never do anything to fleece the general populace into thinking everyone in the industry is straight, they just are! Just ask Rock Hudson and Anthony Perkins and James Dean and Anges Moorehead and Elizabeth Montgomery and Tab Hunter and, and, and...

Faded "Divas"

First of all, let me apologize for my use of a word I have come to personally despise: diva. Or divas. Never have I seen a word more heinously abused in our culture in the last decade than this word. Now, I am no fan of opera myself, but seriously, unless some woman is dressed like Brunhilde and belting out an aria or thirty, please do not let me see or hear the word diva associated with her in any way. And dear sweet baby Jesus please let me not see it all bedazzled on the shirt of some Midwestern white girl who spends 3/4 of her life shopping at Wet Seal and Forever 21. This causes me the kind of pain that I think Superman must feel when Kryptonite is near. I once hooked up with this super hot guy who had many a tattoo on his body. It wasn't until I was tongue deep in his ass that I noticed the word DIVA tattooed on his upper back in huge letters. Since I am never one to let good ass go to waste, I continued with the task at hand. But I will tell you truthfully, I couldn't really bring myself to consider a return engagement.

But I digress from the original reason for posting this. There is a record store in my neighborhood called Medium Rare Records. Now the website linked to focusses on some kitschy cool rarities of which this store has plenty. But it's main stock in trade (and what is heard pumping out of it's external speakers all day long) seems to be really bad dance music. The number of times I have walked by to see a TV screen playing the same live Kylie Minogue DVD are too numerous to even count. And every now and then they have a banner up in the window for a live in-store appearance. And more often than not it's for some washed-up songstress who hasn't had a hit in 12 years of Sundays and, while most likely trying to promote a new album/sound/tour is really on hand because people want one thing and one thing only from her: her hit(s).

A few months ago it was Jody Watley who is now working this wannabe neo-soul look and seems to have some very Serious New Music to give us. Currently they have a banner up announcing the instore appearance of Freda Payne. She of "Band of Gold" fame, singing about how her man dissed her on her honeymoon (which is just plain sad) and now apparently of hideously age-inappropriate sleeveless shirt fame as well. And last night I saw the cover of some LGBT entertainment rag letting me know that they had an in-depth interview with Taylor Dayne and her huge lesbian fanbase. Really? Huge? Lesbian? Wow.

I really just don't get it.

What is it with my fellow homos and this love for these faded, one-hit (or three hit) wonders of yore and their need to drag them out of mothballs every few months? I seriously don't understand it, even from an ironic "Wasn't 'Tell It To My Heart' so bad it was good" point of view. And do these ladies even enjoy it? I mean sure, they're still working and all, but at what price. I just imagine someone like Crystal Waters walking offstage after her performance at Gay Pride Peoria being like "If I have to sing '100% Pure Love' in front of one more group of chest waxed, tan-in-a-tubed, eyebrows plucked within an inch of their lives group of nellies onre more time, I swear to God I am going to shoot myself in the face!" Or maybe she loves it. Maybe they all love it. Maybe the two remaining members of one of my favorite childhood groups, Bananarama like nothing more than to have to sing "Venus" again and again for European Pridefests all over the continent. But it all strikes me as more than a little sad on all sides. Whether it's the faded popette willing to sing her song again and again like a wind-up toy or the hordes of homos willing to rush to see them do so, it just kind of bums me out.

Maybe it's just another version of a post I made last year about our culture's need to rehash and reunite all old music/musicians. Or maybe it's a little more personal. The band I'm the drummer for, Ex-Boyfriends has gotten a fair amount of coverage in the gay press. And while I love that a lot and it makes sense since two of us are queer and yay for gay mags having some decent taste in music and all, I fear us becoming a niche act. A novelty. Pigeonholed. As much as I love the fuck out of queer people in many ways, I don't want to be like, 50 years old and getting together at some Pride event in the middle of fucking nowhere to sing "Him for Me". And while I know there is a huge difference between my band and say, CeCe Peniston, it still is something I worry about. And who knows, maybe then I will be so grateful for the work. Assuming I ever get to be a "working musician".

So for now, I will just thumb my nose at the throngs of lads who dash off to see these ladies of yore ply their tattered pop wares. And just cross my fingers that I'm marginally cute enough to have them come watch me bang the drums when I am old enough to qualify for Social Security.

Insomniac Time Wasting

Here are 30 albums I totally adore at this point in time and pretty much always. Woo.

Create your own Music List @ HotFreeLayouts!

"I don't have to be relevant, I'm Tori Spelling!"

Oh shit. Oh fucking hell. I am so totally fucked. I am owned. I have found my new TV crack and I can't hide my shame one bit. Sure it's making her money and sure it's putting her out there as a celebrity doing something other than appearing in tabloids. But hell if I can't tip my hat (you know, cuz I wear them so much) to someone who is so willing to make fun of herself so often.


There are at least 3 fake boob jokes in the first 10 minutes. How can you not love it?
And yes, it's totally meta and weird because it's about her "life" but it's "fictional" and she's the only "real" person in it and blah blah blah. But lord knows, I would rather see Ms. Spelling doing this show than having her be cast in something "serious" like another Lifetime movie where she plays a neurosurgeon/sex addict or something else way believable. And, besides all of the Tori Spelling stuff, the show is full of cheap double entendres and tons of easy sex jokes so of course, I love it. Also, gay kissing!

Oh, snap.

Natalie Dee gets all kinds of awesome on her latest comic.



I feel this goes quite well with my previous post. Like the proper wine with a lovely meal.

Hipster Hanky Codes

As many of you may know, we homos have this thing called The Hanky Code. The Code has strong ties to the leather and SM community and it's generally an old school thing. Some people keep it alive today and most gays worth their salt at least know some of the Hanky Code basics (left pocket is top, right is bottom; red is for fisting, dark blue is for fucking, etc). Some folks refer to the hanky in the back pocket as "flagging" and will say "Oh, so and so is flagging blowjob top" and so forth. Outside of The Wild World of Gay, not many folks know the Hanky Code even exists, let alone what it means. But you generally don't see straight people rocking the bandana in the back pocket anyway. Until now.

If you live in a city or town that has a lot of Indie Rock Hipster Dudes in it, then you will know all about this new phenomenon. From out of nowhere, with seemingly no awareness of the aforementioned Hanky Code, I am seeing Hipster Boys all over the country "flagging". No lie. When Ex-Boyfriends were on tour for most of this month, I kept seeing all these Indie Rock Hipster Boys with hankies hanging out the back of their pockets! There was always a basic uniform that went along with said hanky. It usually involved a skinny Hipster Boy wearing very tight, tapered, black jeans a la The Ramones, black Converse All Stars, some sort of tight t-shirt with a tight jacket (usually denim, sometimes leather) also black, dyed black hair that was usually meticulously messy and a hanky in the back pocket. The hanky was, more often than not, red or black. Said hanky was also, more often than not, in the back right pocket of the aforementioned hipster. Oh, and this is most important of all: these Hipster Boys were almost always with some Indie Rock Hipster Girl. And not in a "Girlfriend, I wanna dye your hair black after I bleach it underneath and make you a punk rock babe" kind of way. In a "We're a couple" kind of way. So clearly they were not homos.

But despite all of this information, all I could see was a bunch of boys flagging as fisting and SM bottoms. And somehow knowing that this was not the case and these boys were just hopping on the latest Hipster Fashion Trend, I found myself almost annoyed with them. I wanted to drag them all to the Folsom Street Fair and watch the hilarity and shenanigans ensue. It dredged up all my annoyance at these F.N.G.(Fey Not Gay)© boys who can get away with dressing like teenage goth girls and not have to worry about it meaning that they're queer.

But then I thought about it a bit more and realized something: this might be the birth of The Hipster Hanky Code that I am witnessing. Maybe the black hanky means "I listen to noise rock" and the red one is all "I am emo, I wear my heart on my sleeve". I mean it makes sense if you think about it. How else are a bunch of people who are all so invested in being socially awkward, shy and self-hating supposed to find each other so they can date/bone? And how are they going to make sure that their music collections are worthy of co-mingling before they have even spoken? That baby blue hanky will let you know that your intended Hipster Mate leans towards the sweet fragility of Belle And Sebastian or Mates of State just as the shred of burlap clues you in to his or her proclivity for new folk acts like Devendra Barnhart and Joanna Newsom. You're not a fan of The Decemberists? Then stay away from that rakish lad with the purple, crushed velvet hanky in his back right pocket. And remember boys, the hot pink hanky may indicate her love for Sleater-Kinney but it also may mean she's not interested in you and your Hipster Cock. Shocking, but true.

And now that I've figured out this is what's happening with the Hipsters, I'm not mad at them. Sure, they are mining a part of queer culture to make it their own but let's face it, we've always been trendsetters. And frankly, bandanas are so not hot, so they can have them. One thing did still give me a little more pause: I have not seen any of these Hipster Boys rocking a hanky in the left back pocket. But is it really any surprise that all Indie Rock Hipster Boys are bottoms? I thought not.