Why Is It ...

… that whenever I say, “How stupid can you be?” some people seem to take it as a challenge

… that little gesture I make with my hands that looks like a heart isn’t a heart; it’s my hands around your scrawny neck if you keep fucking with me.

… that whenever someone says “there are two types of people in this world” I always cut in and say, “And I avoid both.”

… that I find it sad to live in a world where we add a word to the dictionary just because stupid people use it enough … it’s really sus … you haven’t got rizz …  and you’re delulu.

… that if you see me jogging, for the love of god, kill whatever is chasing,me.

… that y’all need to know that if I am a sarcastic asshole with you it’s either because I really like  and feel comfortable teasing you, or because I really hate you and don’t care if you know it; but good luck figuring it out.

… that I believe the walls of Hell are all lined with the deleted selfies from your phone

… that sometimes I have to close my eyes, count to ten, take a deep breath, and remind myself that I wouldn’t look good in prison stripes so I just smile at the dumbass and walk away

… that most days I feel like life is like a soup and I’m a fork

… that the more I get to know certain people the more I understand why Noah only let animals on the Ark

Why Is It ...

... that people need to know that, while I might be annoying, at least MY lock screen isn’t a selfie.

… that when I was younger and my parents told me not to come home late, I always came home early … the next morning.

… that I miss the old days back in 1955 when I didn’t exist.

… that the fact that I have more clothes to sleep in than I do to go out in says a lot about who I am as a person.

… that I want to join the cicadas this summer and just scream for six weeks straight.

… that when a social media post includes “I bet none of my friends will share this” you can rest assured I won’t.

… that when I know my social media page is being watched I post things on purpose, just to ruffle your feathers.

… that sometimes the best place to be is nowhere to be found.

… that no one  or nothing has had a bigger glow up in the last ten years than cauliflower. It went from being nasty ashy broccoli to being the Mystique of vegetables, always coming at you with a new shape. You want rice? Mashed potatoes? Pasta? Cheese? Pizza? Low cost housing? A man? Make it from cauliflower.

Why Is It ...

… that rightwingnuts tell me that if I don’t like Jason Aldean’s gun-toting ambiguously racist filmed on a lynching site video and song, then I don’t need to watch it or listen to it?  But if I same the same thing to them about books—if you don’t like certain books, don’t read them—they don’t understand the hypocrisy?

… that Tori Spelling and the five children she shares with her soon-to-be-ex Dean McDermott appear to be living at a $100-a-night motel in the Los Angeles area? Is it because she’s filming another reality show, Tori Does Skid Row?

… a federal judge has refused to allow Florida’s drag ban to go back into effect after an earlier ruling placed a temporary injunction against it?  Is it because the judge knows that drag is art and as such is protected as Free Speech? Go see a drag show, Florida, it’ll take your mind off the fascist you elected governor.

… that Large Marge is all over Twitter saying she will never stop fighting to protect kids, but says not one single word about the so-called men of faith who are raping children in churches? Is it because in church child rape is acceptable to the GOP?

… that the state of Florida wants to teach children that enslaved people benefited from slavery because they learned a trade?

… Miranda Lambert pitched a fit when people took selfies while she sang? I mean, she got her coins and, no disrespect, it’s Miranda Lambert. Does anyone really wanna hear her sing?

... that some days I realize I'm surrounded by idiots, and other days I realize that it's not just some days?

... that the GOP wants so-called pornography, in the form of LGBTQ+ literature, removed from libraries, but cheer when Large Marge shows pornographic, private images in Congress?

Starting Off The Week With A Giggle And A 'WTF?'

I like PETA, I do. I mean, what’s not to like: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. A person who doesn’t like PETA has got to be nuts, though there are time when PETA itself gets a little crazy.

British nature photographer David Slater went to Sulawesi in 2011 and created a book called "Wildlife Personalities" with the pictures taken on that trip, and that’s where PETA is pissy.

See, while taking photos Slater left a camera on the ground and a macaque monkey took a series of selfies that are, well, fabulous. Selfies that prove this macaque is the Selfie King and every single person on the planet needs to stop taking selfies right now because, in the words of The [t]Rump, ‘You’re a loser.’

But, and this is the WTF I referred to up top, a novel lawsuit was filed in federal court in San Francisco by PETA saying the court should issue an order allowing PETA to administer all proceeds from the photos for the benefit of the monkey, which it identified as 6-year-old Naruto, and other crested macaques living in a reserve on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.

Yes PETA is claiming that since the monkey took the selfies that PETA should become the administrator of the income generated by the selling of the selfies—they appeared in Slater’s book, and at many online sources—so they can care for the monkey and others.

Seriously; PETA maintains that no one owns the copyright to the images because they were taken by an animal, not a person.

Again, seriously. And they have a leg to stand on because last year, the U.S. Copyright Office issued an updated compendium of its policies, including a section stipulating that it would register copyrights only for works produced by human beings. It specified that works produced by animals, whether a photo taken by a monkey or a mural painted by an elephant, would not qualify.

And so PETA struck, and used Slater’s own account of his interaction with Naruto against him stating that Naruto "authored the monkey selfies by his own independent, autonomous actions in examining and manipulating Slater's unattended camera."

Slater, for his part, believes the British copyright obtained for the photos by his company, Wildlife Personalities Ltd., should be honored worldwide. And he has offered to sell copies of one of the "monkey selfies" and will donate $1.70 per order to a conservation project dedicated to protecting Sulawesi's macaques. But he also wants some of the money from the sales for his daughter:

"I sincerely wish my 5-year-old daughter to be able to be proud of her father and inherit my copyrights so that she can make my work into an asset and inheritance and go to university. I have very little else to offer her."

Seriously, PETA, aren’t there bigger fish to fry? Perhaps a lawsuit, or even a request, that Slater donate some of the proceeds from his book to a conservation project in Sulawesi might have made you look better and less like a monkey with a camera.

And again, selfies addicts of the world: when a monkey takes the Best Selfie Ever it’s time for y’all to stop.

HuffingtonPost

Note to Job Applicants: Don't Text Nude Selfies to HR Manager

I am not a phone person. I do not need nor want the latest gimmick-y gadget-y phone. I have a cell phone that makes and receives phone calls and, I think, it takes pictures, though I use another device, called a camera, for that.

I don’t play games; I don’t Google on my phone, or Facebook or Tweet or Instagram on my phone. Nor do I take selfies — even with the aforementioned camera.

But even if I did, I wouldn’t be this guy …

Shortly after being offered a job, an Illinois man texted two selfies — two nude ­selfies, and ALLEGEDLY by accident — to the Human Resources manager who had recently interviewed him and was interested in hiring him.

It was only when the man called the company to follow-up on his interview that the HR manager recognized the number as the same one that sent the nudie pics and called the police.

Cuz that’s a crime, you know.

The Elmhurst police say the man "admitted to sending the photographs, explaining they were actually meant for another individual and were sent to the victim in error" and the HR manager decided not to not press any charges.

The police told the man to never contact her again.

Oh, and the job offer was rescinded.

That could never happen to me. Just sayin’.

NBC News

Random Musings

Y’all know this story … on December 27, 2014, Leelah Alcorn, a 17 year old transgender youth wrote posted a suicide note on Tumblr and then walked in front of a semi-truck on a busy highway.

Leelah explained how her parents had forced her to attend conversion therapy, pulled her out of school and isolated her in an attempt to change her gender identity and so a petition has been created to enact Leelah’s Law to Ban All LGBTQ+ Conversion Therapy.

If the petition receives 100,000 signatures within the first 30 days, the White House will respond. Right now, the petition has 93,891 signatures, and needs 6,109 more to qualify by February 2. While it won't guarantee a bill or a law, greater awareness means greater possibility for action.

Take a moment, click HERE, and sign.

Thanks.

Now on to a more fabulous note … Diana Ross will be taking up residency in Las Vegas.

No, Diva ain’t living there, but she will be performing at the Venetian for nine days in April, and could make it a permanent thing.

I need to get my ass to Vegas …. Maybe she’ll ask me to dance with her again.

Down there to Alabama, where marriage equality is becoming legal, the state’s first and only openly gay state legislator, Democratic Representative Patricia Todd has taken to Facebook to fire back at politicians alleging that same-sex marriage would erode "family values" if it becomes legal in Alabama.

Todd called out the hypocrisy of many lawmakers using the rallying cry of "family values" to prop up their anti-gay views when they are having extramarital affairs, and basically says she’ll out these hypocrites.

Here’s my deal: why sink to their level. Patricia? I mean if Joe Blow Congressman is schtupping someone other than the missus, who cares? Outing them only makes The Gays seem vindictive and petty; why not just show statistics from places where same-sex marriage is legal that disprove their idiotic arguments.

Fight negativity with positivity, m’kay.

That said, if Joe Blow Congressman is anti-gay and has a little boytoy on the side, then out him as the ultimate hypocrite.

I hate these closeted gay men and women who seek to deny equal rights to The Gays. They should have their closet doors blown open.

Photo of the Week:

This could be in gossip, except the photo qualifies it for its own segment. While Lohan was hospitalized after her Bora Bora mosquito bite — and no word on how sick the mosquito became after sipping Lohan blood — she was bored. So she began posting selfies in her underwear to the net, but she doesn’t have the Photoshop skills of Queen Bey so …

Notice Lindsay’s remarkably thin waistline? Look at the bottles on the shelf behind her, and how they inexplicably lean toward her.

Bad Photoshop! Bad.

If sometime this evening you hear a blood curdling scream from sea to shining sea, well, it’s Carlos … because I’ve just told him that the next season of Downton Abbey will be the last one. 

Writer Julian Fellowes is ending the show — which was supposed to run for one, maybe two seasons — after its sixth year to work on a new project about 19th century New York.

Brooklyn Abbey?

Just wondering … now, let me get a cold compress for Carlos.

Sometime last year I DVR’d Ten Years because it starred Channing Tatum and he has a habit of baring his most gorgeous ass in all his films. Sadly, in this film, he did not, which only made it even worse than I thought.

The lone bright spot was the character of Reeve, played by Oscar Isaac; his was the only character that wasn’t a stereotype of some high school student at his reunion. Plus, he’s hot.

And this week, I heard that Isaac was to be on The View so I watched … and he’s hotter than that, sweeter than that, smarter than that.

He’s my new Hugh Jackman. I’ve told Carlos that when … when not if … Oscar Isaac comes to Smallville to sweep me off my feet, well, I’ll be going.

Hot. Oh, and he has a new movie out called A Most Violent Year with the faboosh Jessica Chastain. I'm making Carlos see it with me this weekend.

So that rug at the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office that read ‘In Dog We Trust’ instead of ‘In Cat … I kid … God We Trust’ has been replaced and the Oops Version was sold at auction for $9,600.00.

The money will be donated to Canine Estates, a Palm Harbor nonprofit for injured and abandoned animals.

Thank Dog.

I loves me some Nashville …I love that they are taking a risk by having a gay character on the show — I mean, country music and openly gay people don’t generally mix — especially when the gay in question is played by hunky Chris Carmack [down there], who has macked on quite a few dudes since joining the cast.

And maybe, just maybe, he’ll be macking on Kyle Dean Massey [up there] who has joined the show in the recurring role of Kevin Bicks, a successful singer-songwriters in Nashville who also happens to be openly gay.

I expect sparks, Nashville.

I kinda like Sam Smith, that Brit singer who many call … wrongly, I think, the male Adele … though I got tired of him not talking about being gay and yet now that’s all he talks about.

But that’s not the Musing today. When I first heard his single, ‘Stay With Me’ I liked it … because I’d heard it before. I remember tooling down the road and singing along with it, only the words I sang didn’t match up because I was actually singing Tom Petty’s ’I Won’t Back Down.’

And yet I never heard any mention of the similarities until now, when I heard that Smith has agreed to fork over songwriting royalties to Tom Petty after Petty's lawyers called him out on the very apparent similarities.

But I keep wondering why it took so long; I mean, I knew this months ago. Maybe I should be Petty’s lawyer?

I’d never heard of Joni Ernst, the newly elected Republican senator from Iowa, until she was tapped to give the Republican response to President Obama's State of the Union address last week, in which she spoke about her family’s humble beginnings and wearing bread bag on her feet:

“They had very little to call their own except the sweat on their brow and the dirt on their hands. But they worked, they sacrificed, and they dreamed big dreams for their children and grandchildren.”

It all sounds very Joad Family — Google it youngsters — except … Ernst failed to mention that her family did not succeed alone, but had a boatload of federal cash to help them out.

Her father, Richard Culver, received $14,705 in conservation payments and $23,690 in commodity subsidies by the US government, while his brother, Dallas Culver, received $367,141 in federal aid, with some $250,000 geared toward corn subsidies. And the brothers’ late grandfather Harold Culver received $57,479 from the government between 1995 and 2001.

But the farm subsidies weren't the only payments her family received: a construction company owned by Joni’s daddy received more than $200,000 in county contracts while Joni served as auditor of Montgomery County, Iowa, despite a strict conflict of interest code governing contracts to family members of county officials.

Uh huh. I guess with all that government money coming in, Little Joni Ernst never bought a computer to see what a quick Google search would bring up when you start spouting off about being poor and working hard and getting nearly half a million dollars in federal aid.

But she’s a Republican so they don’t like to talk about that stuff. Now, I’m sure her family worked hard — farming is hard — but they did not do it alone, and for her to play it off like they did is the typical GOP bull sh*t.

Shame on you Joni.

Rumor has it — and I heard it from Rachel Maddow — that Bryan Fischer, the virulently anti-gay Director of Issues Analysis for the American Family Association, has been fired.

Maddow says the firing was due to Israeli press reporting that Reince Preibus and the RNC are taking a trip to Israel which is being funded by the AFA, while Fischer has said, more than once in his program, that "Jews have no right to practice the faith of Judaism in the United States" and that The Gays are behind the Holocaust and Naziism.

Fischer, for his part, says he has not been fired. Stay tuned.

I’d never heard of Hozier before, but one night, driving home from work, I heard this little ditty, ‘Take Me To Church’ and it has been stuck in my head ever since.

It doesn’t hurt that it’s an anti-organized religion tune, which plays up the hypocrisy of organized faith, and that there's a couple of gay guys in it.

The Funny Papers

Random Musings

So George Zimmerman was arrested. AGAIN.

He ALLEGEDLY pointed a shotgun at his girlfriend, and has been charged with one count of felony aggravated assault, and two misdemeanors including domestic violence battery and criminal mischief for the ALLEGED domestic dispute.

Here’s my take:

1. George Zimmerman thinks he has a right to use his guns to solve any issue that displeases him, whether it’s a girlfriend pissing him off or a young boy walking though his neighborhood.
2. George Zimmerman is the poster child for why we need stricter gun laws in this country.
3. George Zimmerman, like OJ Simpson, who also got away with murder, will one day find himself behind bars for another crime, just like OJ. It’s the universe righting itself.

Until then, let’s just hope he doesn’t murder anyone else.

Ted Cruz; “Senator” and comedian, er, liar.

At The Atlantic's Washington Ideas Forum recently, Fox News host Chris Wallace pointed out to Cruz that many of his colleagues thought he’d hurt the party by forcing the government shutdown instead of letting Obamacare fail on its own, and Cruz responded like this:

"That ignores who I think was responsible for the shutdown. I didn't want a shutdown. Throughout the whole thing, I said we shouldn't have a shutdown."

The audience howled, knowing a liar and charlatan when they see one.

And the Tea Party thinks he’s their newest darling? I cannot wait for him to run for President because that would really be funny.

Carlos and I went to see 12 Years a Slave over the weekend and I must say I loved it. Of course, I am a huge fan of Chiwetel Ejiofor, who played the slave Platte, AKA Solomon Northrup. It was hard to watch at times; cringe-worthy and WTF-inducing, but it’s the kind of story that needs to be told and remembered so it cannot happen again.

Based on a true story, Ejiofor plays Solomon Northup, a free man living in upstate New York, who was kidnapped in Washington, DC and sold into slavery, and forcibly taken to Louisiana, where he worked for assorted slave masters played by Benedict Cumberbatch, Michael Fassbender and Bryan Batt. The cruelest of all was Fassbender’s character who was insane and brutal and vicious, to say the least.

Other actors in the film, include Lupita Nyong’o as Patsey, in a heartbreaking performance, along with Alfre Woodard, a slave turned slave-owner, and Sarah Paulsen as Fassbender’s sadistic wife.

But it’s all Chiwetel Ejiofor and, these aren’t spoilers, in two scenes he proves whey I think he should win the Oscar. 

One, at the funeral of a fellow slave who died in the field, the camera pulls in close on Solomon as the other slaves sing a Negro spiritual; with just his house and very subtle facial expressions, you see him go through all kinds of emotions about his situation, the plight of the slave, and his final realization that he may never get home.

Two, in one of the last scenes all he has to say is “I apologize for my appearance’ and the tears flowed.

It’s a great film, subtle and yet in your face; all of the performances are just spot on. It’s not the kind of film that you can see again and again, but it’s the kind of film that stays with you for a very long time afterwards.

Orlando Cruz, the openly gay Puerto Rican boxer married his boyfriend José Manuel Colón in New York's Central Park over the weekend.

New York City Councilmember Melissa Mark-Viverito, who is among the frontrunners to succeed Christine Quinn as New York City Council Speaker officiated the ceremony, and Orlando noted the ceremony on his Facebook page:

“Giving thanks to my heavenly father for one more day of life and with [my] husband José Manuel in it.”

Congratulations to the happy couple.

The Oxford English Dictionaries announced that ‘selfie’ is their international Word of the Year 2013.

selfie noun, informal (also selfy; plural selfies)

a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website

Oxford Dictionaries editors reveals that the frequency of the word selfie in the English language has increased by 17,000% since this time last year, though the word can actually be traced back to 2002 when it was used in an Australian online forum.  

Other words on the short list included bedroom tax, binge-watch, bitcoin, olinguito, schmeat, showrooming, and twerk.

Yikes. I have taken but one ‘selfie’ in my life and it was a few years back when I had the shingles because my father wanted to see it. That picture was taken and sent and then deleted.

Pity poor Nom [National organization for Marriage].

After the Human Rights Campaign [HRC] filed a complaint with the IRS to compel NOM to publicly release its financial documents related to its political advocacy spending in 2012 comes the news that the hate group is some $2.7 million in debt.

NOM's sole 2012 ballot victory occurred in May, when North Carolina voters approved a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

Ouch. I’m guessing Bryan Brown is really crying now.

This is a football game? Men in Speedos?

Perhaps I should have attended more game when I lived in Miami, those these two brutes in teeny bikinis were told to put their clothes back on by stadium security.

Damn them!

People magazine has named Adam Levine The Sexiest Man ALIVE!!

Hardly. Cute, sure; sexy, no. I could list hundreds more qualified for the title … 
Chiwetel Ejiofor, Tom Hiddleston, Colin Farrell, Ralph Fiennes’ Morris Chestnut, Chris Pine,  Henry Cavill, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tyson Beckford, Chris Hemsworth, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Diego Klattenhorf, Billy Brown, Sean Maguire, Zachary Quinto, Jake Gyllenhaal, Blair Underwood, Hugh Dancy, Jon Hamm, Jonathan Bailey, Idris Elba, Kellan Lutz, Channing Tatum, Kevin Ryan, Daniel Craig, Michael Fassbender, Daniel Day-Lewis, Matt Damon, Denzel Washington, Ryan Gosling, Anderson Cooper, Damian Lewis, Matt Bomer, Charlie Carrick, Oscar Isaac, Omar Borkan Al Gala, Baz Luhrman, Bradley Cooper, Jason Sudeikis, Tom Bateman, Blake Ritson, Francois Arnaud, Hill Harper, Sam Palladio, Mike Colter, Jonny Lee Miller, Hugh Jackman, David Giuntoli, Max and Charles Carver …

Okay, I’ll stop.