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 February 19, 2009

Gaydar? I Think Not

Once and for all, if you are not gay you do not have gaydar. Period. Gaydar is something only actual gay people have. It is an inborn sixth sense that allows their eyes to meet across a crowded room in silent acknowledgement of their shared aberrant proclivities. If you are not gay, you do not need this sense, therefore it was not provided by whichever imaginary God you think hands out this stuff.

Just because you have the sensitivity or insight to figure out that the guy at your office who dresses well and never mentions the gender of his dates is probably homosexual, doesn’t mean you have gaydar. It just means you might be relatively sensitive, or that you watch the Logo network too much.

In recent years, heterosexuals have begun acting like all their special rights were being trampled and infringed upon. First Disneyland gave queers their own night to get down with Mickey. Then the military, more of less, allowed the homos to serve. (What choice did they have, someone has to fight those preemptive wars?) Then queers started reproducing like they wanted to populate their own planet. And, most recently, the gays have been insisting they have the right to legal marriage.

So, it’s natural that straight folks would like to have a share in something gay people claim as a birthright, since many of them feel they’ve had to share so much they thought was theirs alone. But those things heterosexuals are desperately trying to secure for themselves are just basic, human rights. Yes folks, they’re not special, they are the very same unalienable rights for which the founding fathers left England and fought a war.

Heterosexuals are not being asked to give up anything to the gays. In fact, they shouldn’t be affected by any of these long-deserved changes in the slightest, unless they’re peeved that they suddenly have to buy the china and ice cream makers at the non-gender specific Macy’s registry that gays have been buying for them for millennia.

So, please stop bragging to your friends about your incredible gaydar. Gaydar is not a right, it is not a frame of mind, and it is not something you can learn from "Will and Grace." It is one of the few tools with which gays and lesbians have been provided that allows them survive and find companionship in a world that is largely hostile to their happiness.

And, if for some reason you really do have gaydar, you probably need to come out of the closet.

 July 4, 2008

Coffee, Tea or Depression?

Starbucks is falling! Starbucks is falling! OMG! For the first time in over a decade Starbucks, the ubiquitous Seattle-based coffee purveyor, which has been a symbol for, both wanted and unwanted gentrification across the nation, announced that it would begin shuttering locations, rather than opening new stores. With gas prices rising daily, jobs diminishing at a frightening rate and the mortgage crisis only accelerating, it’s not surprising that Americans have lost their taste for $4 cups of coffee.

Sure, the small luxuries, like expensive beverages and $30 lipsticks, were supposed to be recession-proof. Consuming Americans were supposed to be so resistant to economizing that they would continue to buy things they didn’t need until the very moment that the skies filled with black clouds and rocks of fire began to pelt them in the mall parking lot. Well folks, though the government will not officially admit it, the financial apocalypse has now begun.

The doomsayers who began to predict this eventuality during the days when Ronald Reagan touted the voodoo economics of Morning in America know that the seeds for the current, painful contraction were planted decades ago. They were planted when Americans rejected the energy-and daylight- saving ways of Jimmy Carter. They were planted during the 1980s when the president used his power to bust unions, spend lavishly on bombs, while cutting programs for school lunches and to allow corporations to write tax policies in their own favor.

Still, economic bubble followed economic bubble, and through the sleight of hand of the financial markets and their beholden government representatives, the end was postponed time-after-time. Credit cards for all. Retirement stocks for all. Houses with no money down for all. No one wanted to hear that the world was running out of oil or to engage in the tedious work of sowing before reaping, when ever-growing abundance seemed so free an easy. Even new age spiritual concepts bolstered the idea that the pie was ever-expanding, and one need only wish for it to get a giant slice of their own.

But every fantasy bubble that was sustaining the American middle-and working-classes has now burst. Is there another on the horizon that will float the U.S. past this dangerous juncture? Maybe. But, if something emerges, it will be as false a cure-all at its base as those miracles that preceded it, and it will be short-lived. For the majority of Americans, the party is over.

So, enjoy your last half-caf, half-decaf, caramel, macchiato, Venti latte while you can and then dust off that old can of Folgers. You’re going to need it to keep you awake at night while you’re trying to figure out how to pay the piper’s escalating bills.

 November 12 , 2007

Maher's Mojo

During the current season of his HBO talk show, “Real Time,"  social comedian Bill Maher has been looking worn around the edges. Does he have ennui of the soul after making seven years worth of jokes about the stupidity and crimes of George Bush and now having to squeeze laughs out of another presidential horse race filled with the usual cast of liars? Or is he just burned out from smoking too much pot in the company of too many whores?

Whatever is nagging at him, watching him this season has been like watching a man losing control of — if not his life, at least his program. The series started out fine, if hackneyed, with Tim Robbins as a guest going all liberal crazy on a Dick Cheney biographer. But the following week when his guests were rapper Mos Def and academic Cornel West, things began to fall apart. Def and West hijacked the program by engaging in an hour-long conversation about race that trumped the show’s format and Maher’s ability to shape the conversation. Maher, in fact, could barely get a word in.

Two weeks later Tucker Carlson rabidly shouted down Maher and his panel members so thoroughly that it looked like security would need to sedate him with a tranquilizer gun. The following week security actually was called in during an incident in which an audience member flashed a sign that read “9/11 is a cover-up fraud and began shouting words to the same effect. The man had to be bodily removed by Maher and studio guards.

Live shows are great. They’re the only format left on television in which it’s still possible to see anything resembling “reality.” And Maher has made a career of hosting contentious chat fests that can, and do sometimes, devolve into conversational S&M. That’s what viewers expect. But, this season, Maher has forgotten to tell his guests what the safe word is and they’re running amok.

Perhaps it’s time for "Real Time" to get a make-over. Allowing screamers like Tucker Carlson to receive any airtime is so 2005, and it’s really Fox News’ job anyway. It might be less amusing to see three panelists who are in control of their faculties having an urbane conversation with an intelligent host. But, these days, that kind of dialogue is desperately needed, just as surely as we need a sane approach to environmental degradation or to limit corn syrup as a food additive. After all, as Maher likes to remind viewers, his show is "not TV it’s HBO."  If he didn’t have to wrestle with the cognitive dissonance inherent in contributing to some of the aspects of society he rails against — like letting famous idiots rant about any shit that comes into their heads — maybe he could get some of his mojo back. We could sure use it — now more than ever.

 August 16, 2007

Desperate Housecats

My cat Percy has hyperthyroidism. And she’s not alone. According to scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), there is an epidemic of thyroid disease raging throughout America’s cat population. It's caused by exposure to toxic flame retardants found in many household products and some cat food.

Thyroid disease in cats was rare until the 1980s, when large amounts of  polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PDBEs) began to be used in the manufacture of products like electronics, furniture cushions, mattresses and the padding under carpets — you know, pretty much everything in your house. Cats in California were the first to come down with the disease in droves because our fair state has the strictest mandates for fire-retardant furniture.

What’s great for firemen, it turns out, is not so great for indoor felines who are exposed all day to the dust created by treated fabrics and appliances. Plus, if those cats are also being fed wet food made from fish, they are at even greater risk for this illness. That's because, like all toxic things, PCBEs flow gently to the sea to fuse with all life in their path.

Hyperthyroidism in cats is a serious condition that causes the animal’s heart to race ceaselessly. Left untreated, it leads to premature death. Symptoms include weight loss that occurs despite consistent feeding, agitation and changes in the cat’s voice. If kitty’s soothing little trill has changed to a nasty meowl, it’s time for a trip to the veterinarian.

While Americans love their pets to ridiculous excess and want them to live long, healthy lives, the real concern for the EPA is that household PDBEs pose a health danger to humans. These toxic chemicals have been building up in the environment, in wildlife, in the oceans and inside people’s bodies for several decades. If what has happened to cats, whose exposure has been higher than their owners’, relative to their size, correlates to the human condition — as the EPA fears — then we may yet be in for a heart-pounding, toxic surprise — one we can’t even blame on the Chinese.

Or can we?

 July 17, 2007

Kelly Johnson 1958-2007

Kelly Johnson the founding lead guitarist of the all-female, heavy metal band Girlschool, died after a six-year battle with cancer of the spine on Sunday, July 15th.

I knew Kelly well during the 1980s. She was talented, tender and troubled — not necessarily in that order. I lost touch with her many years ago, but always hoped she was doing well.

Though I had not thought of her in quite some time, I had a dream in which she appeared a week before she died. I guess that's how the psychic internet works.

There is a MySpace tribute page set up for her here where someone has posted "A Love Too Far", a song Kelly told me she wrote about me twenty years ago. Maybe she did. Maybe she didn't. Maybe she told everyone it was written for them.

Rest in peace, Kelly.

More Kelly News

 June 5, 2007

From Pink to Green

Recently, a Sherman Oaks carpet store sponsored a contest in which entrants were asked to design a welcome mat that could be sold to benefit breast cancer research. Of course, only a fraction of the profits from sales of the winning the mat were to go to the charity or charities with which the store was allied. Like Bono’s Red campaign with the Gap, in which shoppers are asked to buy T-shirts and other articles of sweat-shop sewn clothing — so that a small percentage of the profits can go to helping alleviate poverty in Africa — the welcome mat contest is based on the assumption that if Americans can’t get something for their charity, they won’t give at all.

This is the same premise that fills our mailboxes with third-rate greeting cards, pads of paper and address labels all adorned with the logos of various relief organizations that beg us for our checks and credit card numbers. It seems clear that if the $2 billion-plus that Americans give each year was not diluted by the costs of aggressive direct-mail marketing, the production of cheap, tacky, thank-you gifts or the currently-popular cut to a retailer, the people, wildlife and whatnot that rely on this money might get some actual relief. Plus, it’s hard not to wonder every time a thick envelope full of notepads and pretty postcards lands at the door as part of a plea to save the forests, if the forests really need to be saved from the very charities that are cutting them down to print notepads and postcards.

For a breakdown of how much of the money you send is being used to fund an actual cause that interests you and how much is going to pay for the “educational materials” that get sent to you monthly — or the six-figure salary of the organization’s CEO — check out the Better Business Bureau’s Wise Giving Alliance website at www.give.org. And if you’re thinking about giving money for breast cancer research, and you can find it within yourself to live without the self-satisfaction that a pink welcome mat would provide, there are numerous organizations that would be grateful to receive your largesse. You can start here.

 July 10, 2007

Old Friends

Speaking of Cancer, Kelly Johnson the founding guitarist of the all-female, heavy metal band Girlschool, is fighting an ongoing battle with cancer of the spine. If you saw Michael Moore's Sicko, you will be slightly relieved to know that Kelly lives in England, where she can receive medical care without worrying about how much it will cost. Still, any kind of cancer is a terrible thing.

If would like to send Kelly your best wishes, contact her through: girlschool@hotmail.com. The band will make sure she gets the message.

 February 12, 2007

Hearts and Hands (Or: Manual Labor is Girl’s Best Friend)

What would you rather receive for Valentine’s Day: a heart-shaped box of candy, a cupid-inspired heirloom made in a third-world country, or six hours of help cleaning out your garage? Face it, love is not best expressed by purchasing or receiving rubbish you don’t need for a holiday invented by a corporation.

We Americans are already so fat from eating corn syrup-infused foodstuffs that another box of candy will only throw us into diabetic shock. As for decorative gifts, the plethora of storage rental companies that blight the landscape from Maine to Oregon is evidence enough that most of us don’t need more bric-a-brac. And let’s not even get started on what’s wrong with diamonds.

No, it’s not the lack of “luxuries” that makes us grind our teeth into the wee hours. It’s the lack of time or will to work through that unending list of mundane chores that makes life so damn depressing. Another scented candle won’t help mow the lawn, re-grout the bathroom tiles or wax the kitchen floor — no matter how therapeutic the aroma.

Okay, pitching in to weed the flowerbed isn’t as typically romantic as buying a bouquet of long-stemmed roses flown in from Columbia. But the willingness to lend one’s time to another to make their life easier is a far better, and more loving, gift than almost anything else most of us can afford. Think how excited you would be to have your loved one give you half-a-day of their time to wash your windows or take your car in to be serviced. That’s half a day you can now devote to doing something that actually appeals to you – like relaxing. And as a bonus, there’s no need to work up any false enthusiasm over receiving another trinket you’ll have to dust for the rest of your life.

This Valentine’s Day, skip the candy, flowers, dinner out and cheap lingerie, and instead, offer to lend a hand. Because, nothing says love like the willingness to roll up your sleeves and give the object of your affection a much-needed break.

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